Keeping the Covenant

I ended last time talking about the need to become very familiar with the life or Spirit of God, and with His work in our hearts, in order to really walk in the new covenant, and keep the covenant. I spoke about truly learning to hear His voice, to be led by Him, governed by Him, to walk in His light. This necessity is spoken of throughout the New Testament in multitudes of different ways. Jesus tells us that His sheep know his voice and they will “by no means follow a stranger.” Paul tells us that “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” Elsewhere Jesus says, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” Here Jesus clearly implies that we should be led, and learn to walk by a light that is IN US.    

In fact, the entire New Testament assumes a growing familiarity with the Spirit of God. Christians are told to walk in the Spirit, to live in the Spirit, to pray in the Spirit, to love in the Spirit, to worship in Spirit and truth. We are to be taught by the Spirit, washed, sanctified and justified by the Spirit. We are told to begin in the Spirit and be careful not to try to continue in the flesh. We are to put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit, to be transformed into the same image by the Spirit, etc. etc. 

Now I believe that there is a very simple reason why very few of us are familiar with the light or voice or movement of the Spirit of God. And that reason is this: because, often without even understanding how and why, we grieve, quench, and resist the Spirit of God, by thoughtlessly or carelessly continuing to live our own life in the flesh. Christians are often offended at this idea. They are quick to defend themselves and to insist that they would never do such a thing. But arguing in this way shows a great degree of misunderstanding concerning what man IS in his natural, fallen condition. Paul tells us that “the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another” (Gal 5:17). Here we see that resisting the Spirit is very easy. Because the only thing that we need to do to resist the Spirit of God, to grieve or quench His work in the heart, is to continue living our life in the flesh. That life or nature ALWAYS sets its desire against the Spirit. 

I’d like to share something of my own experience with you. Everything in my life began to change dramatically, when I started to believe in the light. Jesus says in John 12:36 “While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” Now I don’t mean that everything changed when I started to believe that Jesus was the light. I think I’ve believed that since I was a young child. Almost every Christian believes that Christ is light, and that He said “I am the light of the world”. But I mean that everything began to change in my life when I started to believe that the light that I was already experiencing in my own heart and conscience, WAS Jesus Christ, and not just my own natural convictions and feelings.

For years I had believed that Christ was the light of the world, but when I imagined how we experience His light, I primarily thought of things like profound revelations, or visions, or spiritual mysteries being made known to my mind. The Lord can of course do these things. But when I experienced convictions for speaking vain words, or a sting in my conscience for lust, or discomfort for selfishness, or shame for giving my eyes or my time to the world, THIS I did not believe was Jesus Christ, the light of the world. I was taught (by friends, family, and culture) to pay little attention to these feelings, to not talk about them, not obey them, and not worry about them. 

And what I’m trying to tell you is that everything began to change in my life when I began to believe that this little light, or this small ability to see things in myself—a light that often bothered me, corrected me, and interrupted my pleasure—was not from my flesh, was not the devil, was not my natural conscience, was not just things I learned from my culture, but was the light of Jesus Christ shining IN my conscience to teach me how to walk in His life. 

When I began to believe in THIS light, and pay attention to it, and actually try to obey it and follow it out of many things, and into other things, then it wasn’t long before I felt myself growing in my sensitivity to it. I mean, with a little time and faithfulness, the voice felt louder, the light seemed brighter, the convictions and teachings were weightier. I felt the evil of evil things with greater clarity, or greater awareness. I became more conscious of what sin was, why it was sin, and why it was so dangerous. As Paul says, “sin became exceedingly sinful” (Rom 7:13). And I can testify that I also felt myself slowly starting to love righteousness, to desire purity, innocence, goodness, cleanness. I became more sensitive to the true nature of things, and not just their appearance. In summary, I felt that the Lord was beginning to write his law on my heart—NOT just a list of do’s and don’ts, but a growing sensitivity to His life, a sensitivity to when I was grieving Him or pleasing Him, when I was staying within the bounds of life and truth, and when I was following my own will outside of those bounds.

This has been my experience, and I consider myself still young and clumsy in it, and I know that I have a long way to go. However, as I began to experience this more and more, I realized that the pictures that God has given to us in the old covenant are outward pictures of this exact same experience. I want to share with you what I mean. 

God opened a door for Israel to leave Egypt through the blood a lamb. You know the story. They painted the blood of the lamb over their doors, and with this picture God opened up a way out of Egypt, He parted the Red Sea, and brought Israel out of Egypt into a covenant relationship with Him. He didn’t just part the Red Sea and tell them all to run for their lives in any direction they wanted. He brought them into a very specific relationship, a relationship that had very specific boundaries and limits, and that was heading in a very specific direction. 

I think it is helpful to think of this covenant like a big circle of light and life. God took Israel out of Egypt, brought them into the wilderness, and placed them into a big circle of light and life. And then He told them that as long as they stayed within the circle, they would be safe. In the circle, in the covenant, they would abide with Him, walk with Him, continually travel towards the Promised Land, and overcome all their enemies. If they stayed in the circle of life and light they would experience forgiveness of sins and purification from uncleanness. In the circle they would learn righteousness and wisdom from God, they would learn how to worship Him, how to draw near to Him, how to experience His presence and power and purity. But if they walked out of the circle, transgressed the limits of the covenant, the boundaries of the covenant, then they would only find death. 

Now in the old covenant all of this was seen and experienced in outward ways, with outward pictures and symbols and types and shadows. The righteousness was described outwardly in laws and commandments. The purification was in bodies, and dishes, and vessels, and clothes. The forgiveness was shown through the death of animals. The worship was with outward offerings and fragrances and priests. The victory was over outward enemies with outward battles. And the death that they experienced when they went OUTSIDE of the covenant or circle, was a death that was manifested physically with plagues, serpents, judgments, destruction by enemies, stoning, fire coming from the presence of the Lord, or even the ground opening up and swallowing the covenant breakers. 

All of these things were outward, shown to Israel in physical ways, discernible to natural senses. But what I’m trying to show you is that Israel did not know how to walk with God in this circle of life and light. They didn’t know how to walk in their covenant, and so God began to teach them the boundaries of life. God began to show them how to stay close to Him, to abide within the limits of this circle. In the old covenant, He was not writing the limits, or the agreement, or understanding on tablets of the heart. No, in the old covenant He wrote them on stones and parchments. But if they were willing to pay attention to Him, and listen to His voice, He taught them the boundaries of light and life. He showed them when they transgressed, or crossed the boundaries. He told them how to turn back and how to enter back in. And when they went out from the covenant through negligence or carelessness or weakness, he showed them how to enter again. 

Now when they left Egypt, He also told them that, in this covenant, He would take all outward sickness away from them. In Exodus 23:35, and in Deuteronomy 7:15 he said, “And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you.” And so whenever they saw sickness, or infections, or leprosy, or any kind of disease in the camp, they knew that something was wrong. Someone or something had broken the covenant. So they were told to go immediately to the priest to show him the sore, or the leprosy, infection or sickness so that he could determine the cause, and teach them the way to be cured. Of course there are many details in all of this, and the details are interesting and important. In short, God showed them that everything that came from their flesh, or grew on their flesh, or flowed out of their flesh, made them unclean, and they needed to be washed, renewed, and purified from it. 

But my point is that, little by little, some of them, the faithful among them (like Joshua and Caleb) learned to walk with God in the covenant that He had established. They learned to live within the circle of light and life, and experience God’s presence and His work. But the great majority of Israel (sadly) continually broke the covenant, transgressed the boundaries, would not submit their will to live and walk where the life was. They would not walk where they could grow in the experience of God’s presence, power, goodness, and purpose. They ignored the law, shut their eyes to the boundaries, and wanted another leader, wanted to follow the desires of their own heart.

All of this was shown to us in outward pictures. Theirs was an outward law, in an outward covenant, written on tablets of stone. And ours is an inward law, in an inward covenant, written on tablets of the human heart. But you must understand that God did not change his mind when He brought in the new covenant; He fulfilled His mind. He didn’t come up with a new idea; He fulfilled the only idea that He’s ever had about a relationship with Himself. “Life in my Son”—that was the idea behind the old covenant, and it was shown to us in outward words and laws and pictures. “Life in my Son”— that is the reality of the new covenant. God has gotten rid of the outward pictures, but He hasn’t changed the plan. The hour came (as Jesus told the Samaritan woman) when all of these things were to be known and experienced in Spirit and Truth, but it was the same life, the same salvation, the same Savior that God was pointing to in every single jot and tittle of the law. 

I repeat, ours is an inward law, written on the human heart. And there is only one law in the new covenant, and all other laws are contained in it. It is “the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.” And ours is an inward covenant, which is also something like a circle of life and light, in which we must learn to abide and live and walk. It is not a picture or shadow or figure of Christ in outward things, but the very life and light of the Son of God, shining in the center of the human soul. That is our covenant. It is God, speaking in the midst of that circle of life and light—which is Christ—and saying “If you want to know life, you must know it here. If you want to experience My life, my power, my victory, my purification, my worship, my redemption, you must learn to walk here!” Now of course I don’t mean that Christ is literally a circle in your heart. I only mean to paint a mental picture of the fact that, in you, as a Christian, there is that which is Christ, and there is that which is not. I mean that, though you have received Christ, it is still possible and very common to abide in flesh, live in self, and fail to experience the covenant. 

I can picture somebody arguing with me and saying, “Paul tells us that we should ‘consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Yes, we SHOULD consider ourselves dead to sin, and live that way too. But in the very next verse he says, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” (Rom. 6:11-13)

And what I am trying to say with all of this is that, just as the great majority of Israel, both when they were in the wilderness, and when they were in the promised land, in the time of Moses, the judges, and the kings, the majority would not pay attention, learn, and stay within the boundaries of their covenant, SO TOO Christians today have not paid attention to the boundaries of our inward covenant, to the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”, to the law that is light that shines in the heart. We haven’t learned the boundaries, the difference between our flesh and His life in us. We don’t really know the Lord’s voice, His Spirit in us. We can’t tell the difference between our own will, our own thoughts, our own desires, and His. We haven’t let the Lord write His law on the tablets of our hearts. We haven’t understood what is written in Proverbs 6:23 “For the commandment is a lamp, and the law a light; Reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” 

When we have found things growing in our flesh, or spreading in our flesh, we have not run to the High Priest to ask Him what it is, why it is there, and how to be free from it. I don’t mean outward illnesses and diseases. I mean things that flow from and grow in the nature of flesh. When we have felt the sting of our conscience, or shame for doing and thinking evil, we have not brought it to the Priest. When we have felt that selfishness, pride, envy, lust, vanity, covetousness, anger, insecurity, love of the world, earthly desires, and other such things were growing in that Egyptian nature, that fallen enslaved nature, we haven’t taken it to the priest to receive the cure. 

Instead of this, we hide our wounds, we make excuses for our leprosy, we compare ourselves to those who are worse than us, and so we keep doing circles in the wilderness, learning a Christianity in words, concepts, ideas, doctrines, and activities, but making little or no progress towards the Promised Land. Can you hear what I’m saying?

Everything that we read of God’s dealings with man in the old covenant depended on their careful keeping of the covenant. We could easily find 100 verses right now where God plainly states that all of Israel’s troubles were brought upon themselves by not keeping their covenant. Their weakness, their corruption, their losses in battle, losses of land, their famines and plagues, barrenness, confusion, captivity, and ultimate destruction. All of it was because they would not walk in the circle of light and life that God had given them. The same is true for you and I. There is nothing but death for us beyond the boundaries of the covenant. I don’t mean physical death, or physical disease. I mean that the only thing we will ever find outside of the life and light of Christ is the life of SELF. We will only find ourselves, with all of the evil, deadness, darkness that is in the first birth, the natural man. 

When we don’t believe in the light, and learn to know and obey the “law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus” then we lose all sensibility to the voice of God. Isn’t this what Jesus continually said to the Jews of His day? He kept saying they had eyes, but they could not see. He said they had ears, but they could not hear. Even to His own disciples, He several times told them that their hearts were still hard. Paul spoke of those who had “become callous” or were “past feeling” (Eph. 4:19). He said it was possible to have our “conscience seared as with a hot iron” (1Tim 4:2). Why does this happen? How does this happen? I am convinced, from my own experience, that it is the result of not believing in the light, not paying attention to the light, or the still, small voice of Christ.

We see a measure of His light, at least at certain times and seasons. We hear His voice speaking, correcting, warning, inviting, at least at some times. But we have learned to say, “This is not the voice of the Son of God! These are not the boundaries of the covenant!” The voice of our own will has become loud and pushy, and we have become very accustomed to listening and obeying it. And when we follow it out away from the light, we lose our experience of God’s power, we cease to grow and stop moving forward. Do you remember Achan in Joshua chapter 7? He clung to something that was contrary to the covenant, hid it under his tent, and IMMEDIATELY Israel lost all power to fight against their enemies. Joshua was confused, fell on his face, and began to complain to the Lord. But the Lord said to him:

“Get up! Why do you lie thus on your face? Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them…Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they have become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore, unless you destroy the accursed from among you. Get up, sanctify the people, and say, 'Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, because thus says the LORD God of Israel: There is an accursed thing in your midst, O Israel; you cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you.”

It is like God said, “Joshua, get up! Why are you confused? The problem is obvious. Did you think you could continue to walk in the Spirit while you were clinging to the flesh? Did you think you could overcome your enemies when you walked away from the covenant?” 

As Christians we often read verses like Jeremiah 31 about the new covenant, and about a law being written on our hearts, and we assume that this is immediately and automatically true of us, even though we are experiencing little or nothing of it. But what I’m trying to tell you is that we have to learn to walk in the covenant. We have to allow the Lord to write it on our hearts, and we have to read it and obey it there. Perhaps you think that this sounds mystical, but it becomes very discernible and practical. And the truth is, that you have already felt some of the boundaries of this inward law. You have already bumped into some boundary markers. And if now you are realizing that you have gone out from it, have not submitted to it or truly learned it, now is your call to turn back. Now is your call to repent, to turn back to the LIGHT that teaches you the LIFE. If you don’t love the light, you will never grow in the life. If you don’t walk in the light, you will never find the communion with the Father and with the Son. 

But if you believe in the light, then stay awake, watch, turn, learn to walk in it, to abide in it, to not ever go out of it. You will grow more sensitive. Your spiritual senses, as Paul says, will be exercised, by reason of use, to discern both good and evil (Heb. 5:14). The light of Christ, when followed and obeyed, makes room for the life of Christ. I believe that this is precisely what Jesus meant when He said, John 12:36 “While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”