We Must Keep the Covenant

Just to refresh our memory for a few minutes, we have seen that man fell into a condition from which he could not extract himself. He fell into what is called sin, the absence of God’s life and kingdom, a condition where man lives and thinks and desires in and according to his own resources. There was no way for man to leave this condition, unless Christ came into it. Christ could not just call us out, because we had no power to follow His voice. He had to come in, join Himself to us, open a way, and lead us out. This is why Jesus says that nobody can come to the Father except through Him. He is not just saying that we can’t go to heaven unless we have the right beliefs or the correct religion. He is saying that it is only by being united to Him, abiding in Him, that we can return to that union with God from which we fell.

We talked about how there are two things in man, and that this is the reason why there is a particular way to follow Him. I mean, God did not come with a magic wand, and, apart from our own will, immediately change us into His image. That is not the way that God offers man salvation. He does not force him, or transform him contrary to his own will. He gives him a measure of His own life in the form of a seed, talent, pearl, a measure of grace, or an implanted Word, and by walking in this gift, with it, submitting to its power and life, man can come OUT with it, and come back IN to what he has lost. 

There is a particular way to walk with God because man is not a robot. He is a free creature that has fallen into a contrary nature. And God has given man a way to come out of that nature by sowing a measure of His own nature into man. This is the reason why Christianity involves a WAY to walk in Him, and not just a status or position or an instantaneous legal transaction. Because it is by denying and resisting the one nature, and clinging to, following, and obeying the other, that steps are taken, progress is made across the wilderness of our own fallen condition. This is how we journey with Christ. This is how Christ becomes formed in us. The way is the death of one nature, and the life, growth, and reign of another, and all of this depends upon our following Christ in the way that He has provided. All of this depends upon “denying ourselves, taking up our cross daily, and following Christ.”

Now, it is this “following” of Christ that I want to focus on at this time, and I want to talk about it by looking at the stories that God has given us in the historical books of the Old Testament. Because these books show beyond any doubt that there is a very particular way that we must follow Him. There is a very specific path that He leads us in, and specific things that we experience when we stay in that path. When Moses was sent to Egypt, he didn’t just open the prison doors and tell everyone to run for their lives in whatever direction they wanted. God’s salvation from Egypt wasn’t a jailbreak. Moses didn’t part the Red Sea and then tell everybody, “Good luck!…everybody use your natural mind to find your own way, or use your creativity to invent one! You go your way, and I’ll go mine, and I hope we meet up in Canaan!” It was nothing like that. Why not? Because again, there was a very specific way to travel, a specific direction, a very specific relationship or covenant with the Lord that they had to stay within. There was a way for them to walk with God, and there were many ways that they could walk away from God.  

And one of the things that you should notice right away in this story is that they did not come out of Egypt and enter directly into the Promised Land. This is something that Christians today should consider very seriously. I say this because it is unfortunately popular in our day to talk about Christianity as though there were no journey involved, or at least as if no journey were necessary. The carnal man desires salvation to be an instantaneous event, an immediate transaction, so that we can quickly feel safe and comfortable, and go on with our lives without having to worry about our souls. We want fast-food religion, a quick sinners prayer, we want to just “make a decision for Christ” or “ask Him into our lives” and then, for the most part, we continue living our lives in the way of our own making and choosing, except for having some new beliefs and some new morals. But here we see clearly that coming out of Egypt was a beginning and not an end. Eating the Passover Lamb was the starting line, not the finish line, and it should cause some degree of fear and trembling to read that MANY who started this journey never did finish. Consider the following Scripture starting in Hebrews 3:12:

Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “TODAY,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: “TODAY, IF YOU WILL HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS IN THE REBELLION.” For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey?

There is a WAY to walk with Christ. There is a WAY to hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, and thereby to grow in the things that accompany salvation. Everyone who responds to the call begins this journey. Millions of Israelites started this journey. Christ has opened a door and cast up a highway upon which all may travel. He entered into our Egypt, He overcame the one who had power to hold us there, parted an impassible Red Sea, and led us out with Him in the midst of the camp. But what did He lead us into? It was not immediately into the Promised Land. No, there was something still very alive in us that could not inherit that land. He did not lead us into a new status, position, doctrine, religion, or club. No, that is not at all what He did with Israel, nor what He does with us. Christ entered into our Egypt, our inward land of slavery to sin and death, in order to bring us out into a new and living way, and the PURPOSE of bringing us into this way was to lead us across the wilderness. Or you could say, the only way to cross the wilderness was to remain in this new and living way. 

There are many in our day who say that this wilderness journey was something for Old Covenant Israel, and that it doesn’t apply to New Covenant Christians. But this exposes a very great misunderstanding of both what man is, and what God desires to do in him. The truth is that we can no more skip the wilderness now in the new covenant, than Israel could skip it in the old covenant. And the reason for this is because, in a very real sense, YOU ARE the wilderness. You, in your fallen condition, with your fallen fleshly nature, your pride, darkness, ambition, deadness, selfishness, with all of your Egyptian desires, imaginations, appetites, murmuring, false gods, false religion, false expectations, you ARE the wilderness that you need to pass through and come out of, in order to experience the kingdom of God. You need to be led through and out of all that you have come to be in the fall. The wilderness is called a wasteland, a howling wilderness, with drought, and scorpions, fiery serpents, enemies, and famine, because each one of these things are found IN YOU. And it is only by walking in the WAY that is Christ, that you will ever pass through, pass out, put off, or become free from any of these things.

I repeat, you cannot skip the wilderness because the very condition depicted by the wilderness in Scripture is the condition of your heart when you begin to follow Christ. And because of this, the length of the wilderness is equal to the difference between Adam and Christ. Do you understand what I mean? I mean, the distance that you must traverse in order to cross the wilderness is the same as the difference between flesh and Spirit, between old and new, between the old man and the new, between the kingdom of Pharaoh and the Kingdom of God in your soul. This is your journey. This is the distance that you must travel. Not (of course) in your own strength, or wisdom, or resources, but rather in the light and power and resources of Another. But you cannot skip it. You cannot pretend that you are not there, or that this is not a problem. You cannot say that crossing the wilderness was for another time and another people. You must pass through it, and come out of it, and this is what you will do if you carefully follow Christ in the new and living way.

And so I return to what I was saying at the beginning. There is a way that God has provided. A way to come out of what we are by nature. It is a living way, created by God, opened by Jesus Christ, taught by the Spirit, whereby man can become something other than what he is by nature. And when Christians walk in that living way, learn to abide in it and stay in it, they experience the death of one nature, and the growth of another. 

Now in order to understand this way that is Christ, and what it means for us to walk in Him, we need to understand the reality of a covenant. The word covenant is very common, and sometimes common words are the ones we understand the least. We assume we understand them because they are so familiar. We said that when God brought Israel out of Egypt, He didn’t bring them immediately into the Promised Land. He led them into the wilderness. That is true. But he led them into the wilderness having brought them into living covenant with Himself. 

Exo. 19:4 “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

God brought them to Himself, into a living relationship with Himself. But it is essential to understand what this relationship was, and how it worked. A covenant is not a static, immoveable, fixed position, where it doesn’t matter what you do or how you live. A covenant is a living relationship, a dynamic interaction between two parties. It is a specific kind of relationship with specific boundaries. And this covenant with God brings about very specific things in those who will walk in it, and it brings about very different things with those who will NOT walk in it. Those who keep the law of the covenant will have one outcome. They will remain within the covenant and experience the benefits and blessings and transforming, cleansing, redeeming powers and promises that are associated with this living relationship. But those who do not remain in the covenant, those who break the covenant, will only experience what exists outside of the boundaries of the covenant.

Now though I am talking about the Old Covenant and using it for my example, we know that the Old Covenant was, in every jot and tittle, a picture of Christ, our covenant. Christ was given to us as a covenant. In Isaiah, the Father speaks of His eternal Son, and says:

“I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles. To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the prison, Those who sit in darkness from the prison house.” (Isa 42:6)

“Thus says the LORD: ‘I will preserve You and give You as a covenant to the people, to restore the earth, to cause them to inherit the desolate heritages;  That You may say to the prisoners, 'Go forth,' To those who are in darkness, 'Show yourselves.' They shall feed along the roads, and their pastures shall be on all desolate heights… For He who has mercy on them will lead them, even by the springs of water He will guide them. I will make each of My mountains a road, and My highways shall be elevated. (Isa 49:8-11)

Christ is our covenant. But what does this mean? It does not mean that Christ is a fixed status, a static or stationary club or a legal position. No, Christ is a living Spirit, and our relationship with Him is a dynamic interaction between two parties. It is a specific kind of relating, of walking, of feeding, of learning, being changed, being led through the desolate heights along springs of water. Christ is a relationship with God that has specific boundaries. Those who walk in the law of Christ, experience one thing, and those who will not walk in the law of Christ, experience something totally different. And what is the law of this covenant? It is “the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.”

There is so much that could be said about this, but there is one specific thing that I want you to understand right now. The Lord brought Israel out of Egypt and brought them into a covenant, and that covenant was the way in which they had to walk with Him. Israel walked with God in a covenant. Now it might be helpful for you to picture that covenant like a circle of life and light. Israel had to walk inside that covenant, they had to keep in that circle. The boundaries of the circle were the revealed laws and ways and statutes of God. When they walked within the covenant they were safe. When they were careful to stay within the circle, they continued to experience the teaching, purifying, healing, guiding, sanctifying, conquering power of God that was part of that covenant. God was teaching them how to draw near to Him. God was healing their diseases, purifying them, removing all sin and transgression from the camp, overcoming their enemies, bringing them closer and closer to the kingdom of God, the Promised Land. BUT, all of this took place only when they kept the covenant. And if they went outside of the covenant, broke the covenant, transgressed the boundaries of the covenant, then they experienced death, in one form or another.

Do you remember these stories? When they broke the covenant, or ignored the boundaries of truth and laws, then sometimes leprosy appeared on their bodies, or sometimes serpents bit them, sometimes a plague consumed part of the camp. Other times there were even more dramatic manifestations of the death that was experienced outside of the covenant. Once the ground opened up and swallowed a large number of families. Another time fire fell from heaven and consumed the two sons of Aaron. In Joshua chapter 7, having broken the covenant they found they had no strength to fight against their enemies. These are all pictures of the same reality, and that reality is this: God brought Israel out of Egypt into a covenant, and in order to experience the powerful working, changing, cleansing, overcoming benefits of the covenant, Israel had to be careful to keep the covenant by walking with God in His law. They were not instantaneously brought into the promised land. They were not automatically free from danger. They didn’t just enter a club or get a new legal position with God. They had to learn what it meant to walk with God in the way that He was teaching them, and to stay within the boundaries of His law. 

Now, it is most certainly true that we have come to a New Covenant, and that that new covenant no longer consists of the outward types, shadows, symbols, and figures that were used by God in the Old Covenant. There are no more animal sacrifices, or sprinkling of blood, or temples, veils, fragrances, offerings, manna, holy things and places. The laws are no longer written on tablets of stone. But there still is a covenant! There still is a living, active, working, transforming relationship that only works when we keep within a circle of light and life, or ABIDE in Christ. And in order for us to experience the true benefit of this covenant, in order to walk in the way, keep in the way, and experience the presence, purity, the heart-changing, cleansing, the overcoming power of God that belongs to this covenant, we have to walk in the way. We have to keep within the boundaries of the covenant.

It is only as we walk with Him in the way that we experience what it means to draw near to God, we experience the light, and bread, and holy incense of Christ in our tabernacle, we experience the transforming power of grace, the purification from all uncleanness and leprosy, we experience the blood of Christ that both forgives and cleanses. John says, “IF we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” “But,” he says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” So we must carefully walk with Him in the light. We must keep the law of the new covenant in order to experience the benefits of the new covenant. 

And here is another great misunderstanding about the new covenant. People frequently say that in the old covenant there was a law, but there is now no law that Christians must keep. This is an absolute falsehood. The law of the old covenant was the shadow of a greater law that we must keep in the new covenant. And that law that we must keep in the new covenant is called the “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” the “law of Christ,” (Gal. 6:2, 1 Cor. 9:21), “the law of faith” (Rom 3:27), the “perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25) (which is a liberty from the flesh); and this spiritual law is the perfect fulfillment and realization of everything that was testified of in the Law of Moses. It is the light of Christ, the living truth of Christ, a living circle of light and life that is given to us as a place to walk. It is a relationship with a living law of righteousness, and God Himself teaches us to walk in His Spirit and not in the flesh. This is the way. This is the covenant. And if we walk in this covenant, according to this inward law of light and life, then we are abiding IN THE WAY, staying in the place or covenant where our hearts are changed, our lives are cleansed, our consciences are purified, our nature is entirely transformed. We are walking in that path where God overcomes all enemies, where truth reigns in the innermost man, where worship is offered in spirit and truth, where victory is experienced over all enemies. 

However, we cannot just say that, by merely believing in Jesus, or reading the Bible, or calling ourselves Christians, we are automatically keeping the law of His life, walking in His light, staying within the boundaries of His covenant. This would be absurd. Think about how many hundreds of thousands of Israelites left Egypt when the Lord parted the Red Sea. How many of these were really willing to walk in the covenant, to carefully stay within the boundaries of that life and light? No, it is very possible, and very common, to accept the truths of Christ and yet continue to walk in darkness. This is what John said. He said we can walk in darkness and lie to ourselves. We can walk in a false light, in our own will, our own flesh, our own WAY, and therefore experience little or nothing of what this covenant can do to the human soul. And what I am trying to suggest to you, is that the REASON why so few of us actually experience the benefits of this covenant, is because we are not walking in the way that God has provided. We are not walking in the circle of light and life. We go outside of the boundaries of the covenant with our minds, our hearts, our desires, our plans, our actions. We transgress the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, the law of living faith, and yet we expect to experience the progress, the change, the transforming power and victory that are only found in the light. Christians in general do not keep their covenant, and so they continue (with much confusion) to experience the death of Egypt, the slavery of Egypt, the darkness of Egypt, the appetites, and nature, and reproach of Egypt. 

Now, what does it mean for us to KEEP the new covenant? The church of today often says, “We don’t have to do anything! Christ did everything! We are already walking in the covenant.” Christ did do everything to create the covenant, to open a door into the covenant, to become the power and life and light and relationship of the covenant. Christ is the circle of light and life. But Christ does not force you to walk, and live, and abide in the covenant. So again I ask, what does it mean to keep in this covenant? It means to walk, and live, and abide in His light and life. If we don’t walk in the light, we can call ourselves whatever name we like, but we are not experiencing that fellowship with the Father and with the Son.

And if we walk in His light, then that light will always bring us to the cross. I mean, that light will always manifest in your heart, in your life, in your will, your thoughts, your desires, your actions, everything that must die in the death of Christ, so that you can live in the life of Christ. That light will always show you what we talked about before—that there are two things in you. In your heart there is a fallen nature of flesh, and a righteous seed of the Spirit. In your heart there is life and death, Adam and Christ,  Jacob and Esau, two men, two births, two kingdoms. One of these must be continually exposed, denied and resisted, and the other must be loved and followed as your teacher. This is walking in the light. This is carrying the cross. This is the way which is Christ, and in which we follow Christ. “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”