“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” – Phillipians 1:6

We live in a culture obsessed with goals and objectives. It isn’t important where you are as much as where you are going and how long it will take you to get there. It is this ambitious spirit that has propelled America, by God’s grace, to the top of the world economically, with all the rights and priviliges appertaining thereunto.

The problem begins when we apply this to spiritual formation. Most of us “know” that there will never be a moment when we have spiritually “arrived”, but often this realization can be as daunting as comforting. We still imagine a standard or a road map to where we want to be and drown in the resulting reality that we have a long way (infinite really) to go. Others may suffer an opposite problem. They may set the bar so low that apathy results.

What are the categories we are trying to succeed in? I can think of several:

• Sin: what we struggle with
• Service: what we do
• Spirituality: how “close” we feel to God
• Effectiveness: how effective and utilized by God we feel.

All of these areas are important. It is important that we are realistic in assessing the sins we struggle with, the service we are or should be doing, how “in tune” we are with the Holy Spirit, and how we observe God working through us. Certainly these are all aspects of a spiritually healthy person.

However, this list is not only not inclusive, it is also not God’s list. God is not reviewing our score each day, subtracting points, rewarding good behavior…punishing bad. He isn’t deciding to reveal Himself to us based on our own merit or how we fit into our own grading metrics.

It is a mostly human tendency to chart progress over time. We are very intimate with time and its effects on us, so it is natural for us to try to fit our relationship into those parameters. However, is this a logical thing to do?

It is not.

As believers raised from death to walk in newness of life with Christ, is our relationship with God temporary or eternal?

It is rarely our inclination to apply the standards of relationship with God to our relationships with other people. We are rarely concerned with things like quantifiable progress.  We simply get to know the other person by spending time with them. We enjoy their company. We open up with them and they with us.

How is our relationship with God really any different? As we pray and mediate, our we simply thinking magical thoughts or saying magical incantations or are we communing with the Creator in a relationship with Him? Is God concerned with what you did or were yesterday or is He concerned with what you are doing and who you are today?

Imagine if we tried to make our earthly friendships as complicated as we tend to make our relationship with God. The result would be a complicated, unenjoyable mess…it would literally choke the life out of those friendships.

We have been welcomed by God through Jesus as friends and brothers. (John 15:14, Hebrews 2:11) 

No, we don’t deserve it. Yes, it is unthinkably generous, but we are called to live in the reality of that truth. We are not called to hold God at arms distance and develop our own ways of measuring success. We are simply called to abide in the love of Christ.

If we do that, the rest will follow. As we learn to love Christ and obey His commandments (the evidence of that love), the rest will follow suit. 

We are not alone in this effort either. God is active and sovereign in our relationship with HIm. He is able to protect us from our own decisions and weaknesses, and accomplish His will in us…even if we are not aware of what that will is. (We rarely are.)

Think about the times and ways God has blessed you…the times you have known clearly what He wanted you to do. Were those times when you were especially righteous? I doubt it.  They were probably times when you were especially open to Him.

We are in a covenant relationship with God on His terms. Live in those terms. Don’t invent your own. In other words: focus on the driving, not the destination. God is able to handle the destination.

So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” - John 10:24

Be honest.  How many times, while reading the gospels have you also wished that Jesus would just come out and say it:

“Hi, I’m Jesus, I’m part of the Trinity, co-equal and one with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.  I’m the promised Messiah, the Christ. This is how it all fits in with Old Testament prophecy and this how I can help you…”

This seemingly would help you and me in many ways. Debates about Jesus’ divinity would be so much more simple and systematic theology would be a breeze. Right?

This is not what the scriptures afford us, however. So often his accusers insult him and ask him directly “Who are you then?” and Jesus responds with cryptic word plays or statements that can be taken in multiple ways.

Example from John 10 [paraphrasing]:
Jesus: I and the Father are one.
Crowd: *picking up stones* You just said you’re God!
Jesus: Doesn’t Psalms say “you are gods”?
Crowd: Doh!

This happens many other places in the gospels. Jesus constantly frames his truths in parables and obscure biblical refrences.

The obvious question is….why? Why would He do this? Is there a rhyme to His reason? Does He simply have a knack for riddles? Is he protecting Himself (i.e., is He afraid of the consequences of speaking plainly?)

Jesus answers these questions for his disciples (and us) in Matthew 13:

This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:

‘You will indeed hear but never understand,
and you will indeed see but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and with their ears they can barely hear,
and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart
and turn, and I would heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.

Contrary to what you may have been told, Jesus did not come to make the gospel simple or easy. He came to reveal God’s truth to those who were honestly seeking, honestly listening, honestly trying to discern the truth.

He provided die hard skeptics just enough rope to hang themselves, while giving those with open hearts the keys to the kingdom of God.

This is confirmed elsewhere as Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a pearl, a treasure buried in a field, etc.  God has provided us with everything we need to find Him. Likewise, the wicked have everything they want to avoid Him.

I will close with this beautiful passage from 1 Corinthians:

Where is the one who is wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the debater of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” – Galatians 3:1-3

Most Christians agree that they do not want to be responsible for the Old Testament law.  Most Christians also agree that they aren’t, or, they assign themselves partial responsiblity to the law. Others seems confident that we are only responsible for the Ten Commandments.  They may also say that we are only responsible for the “moral” laws and not the judicial or ceremonial laws. 

Many more have never really thought about it. So who is right? How should believers view the Old Testament?

Before we find middle ground, let’s begin by defining what the law is and what its purpose is:

1. Old Testament law was given to the Israelites by God through Moses. (See the Pentateuch)

2. The law directs our steps and gives light in our darkness. (Psalm 119:105)

3. The law is holy, good and righteous and good because God is holy, good and righteous. (Romans 7:12)

4. The law shows us what sin is. (Romans 7:8)

5. Where there is no law, there is no sin. (Romans 4:15; Romans 5:13)

Are we under the law?

• “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” – Romans 10:4

• “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.” – Galatians 3:23-25

• “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,  and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”- Ephesians 2:14-16

• “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code” – Romans 7:6

Some might be confused at this point. It seems that the law is being praised and belittled in the same breath. 

Many fair questions are left unanswered at this point:

• How can the law be good and also our captor? 

• Why would God write the law, only to abolish it? 

• Are we not required or wise to heed the guidelines God sets forth in the Old Testament?

• If the law is dead, do the Ten Commandments mean nothing?

Paul answers all of these questions for us in 2 Corinthians 3:  

“Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,  who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” – 2 Corintians 3:5-6

In these two verses, Paul begins to compare and contrast the old covenant, written in words, with the new covenant, established by the Spirit.  He continues…

“Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end,  will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.” – 2 Corintians 3:7-11

God, in establishing His new covenant with believers, is not spitting upon the old covenant and laughing at those who were bound to it.  He is establishing a much greater covenant. This new covenant, being the fulfillment of His perfect will and a promise made to Adam and Eve, is so much better than the old covenant, that it is as if the old covenant is completely worthless.  Paul is comparing and contrasting these two works of God.  We see this technique used many times elsewhere in the Bible. Isaiah 64:6, for example, says that our righteousness is like filthy menstrual rags compared to God’s holiness.

Why does Paul, through the inspiration of the Spirit, call the old covenant the “ministry of condemnation” and the new covenant the “ministry of righteousness”? He does so because of the way each works in the life of believers.

“…ministry of condemnation…“

The law, as we previously stated, was a tool to identify sin. It defined righteousness and it defined sin. It said “Do this right thing because it is pleasing to God.” and “Do not do this wrong thing because it displeases God.”

In this way, the law acted as condemnation to those who were under it.  It was a constant standard with only one purpose: to show us we can never measure up.

“…ministry of righteousness…”

By contrast, the new covenant has a much different effect on its adherents.  God, through His Spirit, indwells us and changes us from the inside out. He replaces our desire for sin with the desire to be holy. He does not ask us to avoid doing the sinful things we want to do, He asks us to not do what our regenerated heart already doesn’t want to do and to do the things our regenerated hearts already desire to do.  In this, God continues the work of righteousness.  He not only wills change in us, but equips us with the desire to work in concert with Himself. (Phillipians 2:13)

How do we put all of this together?

The same God who lives in us and has established His new covenant with us through the Holy Spirit also wrote the law.  It would be a mistake to decide that there are no overlapping purposes between these two covenants.  While the law, as a taskmaster, is abolished for the believer,  there is much we can learn from the law.  It is true that we are no longer required to observe the Sabbath, circumcise our children, make yearly sacrafices, or celebrate passover, but we may if we want to.  As for morality, the Old Testament expressions of what is sin are still valid. We should not covet, sleep around, steal, murder, beat our children, etc.

It is clear that the authors of the New Testament believed in the inspiration and relavence of the Old Testament.  This is taught directly (2 Timothy 3:16) and also implied by the myriad of times they quote the Old Testament and praise those who check what they say against the Old Testament.  Jesus even went so far as to say that the Old Testament is about Him. (John 5:46)

While we learn from the law, we are not enslaved by it. It does not decide whether we receive eternal life. Jesus does.

We, as believers, should not neglect the Old Testament.  Neither should we let it enslave us.  We have been purchased with a price. We should follow Him in Spirit and truth. (1 Corinthians 6:20; John 4:23)

 ”Where the Spirt of the Lord is, there is liberty.” – 2 Corinthians 3:17b