Jesus said this; “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me…” (John 14:21).
This is very clear. Obeying Jesus’ commands is proof that we love Him.
What commands?
Is Jesus referring to the Ten Commandments or the 613 other commands that are listed in the Mosaic Covenant? Or did He have different commands in mind?
The writer of Hebrews stated, “For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law.” This verse will help us answer this last question.
The New Covenant is a changing of the guard. The Levites were the stewards of the Old Covenant. They had specific duties and responsibilities all anchored to the Law of Moses. Jesus’ death on the cross ended those duties. He was the once for all sacrifice for sin. He fulfilled the Old Covenant in its entirety.
Today, we live in the New Covenant. Jesus Christ is our high priest, appointed to be so by God the Father. With this change in the priesthood, there was a change of the law.
The new commands are these.
- Believe in Jesus Christ (I John 3:23)
- Hope in God’s promises (1 John 3:1-3)
- Love God and people. (John 13:33-34, Romans 5:5)
Faith, hope and love constitute the law of the New Covenant.
God writes these laws on our hearts and in our minds. This is the first promise of the New Covenant. God empowers us to live out faith, hope and love through His Spirit.
The laws of the Old Covenant were the responsibility of the people to Israel to keep. They didn’t have it in them to do so. Neither do we.
In this New Covenant, God gives us a new heart and His Spirit to mark our lives with the laws that are most important to God – faith, hope and love.
1 Corinthians 13:13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Colossians 1:5
the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel
1 Thessalonians 1:3
We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 5:8
But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.
What I love is faith and hope will disappear as one grows into the meat of the word and see that LOVE God’s type goes on forever and this is best found in 1 Cor. 13. Now I have discovered that in the new life that God installed in each believer is this unnatural LOVE that flesh cannot do or have. I discovered to reckon myself dead to flesh (sin)(romans 6:11) since all sin has been condemned to the flesh via the cross, now since and as long as I die daily to sin(flesh) in my minds eye I am consciously alive to God and that Love of God is prevalent, and in control via my free will because of God.
Thanks Bob for this
Hi Bob, love this post. Am learning more about grace. Do you think that abiding in Christ would also be a commandment 1 John 3:24? I know many grace preachers believe once saved always saved but many passages refer to those who keep in the faith. What do you think?
Roma if I may, to me not a commandment a reality just like a tree branch is naturally abiding in the tree and therefore has life in and through it
In love
Roma, that is a great question. Abiding equates to believing in Jesus. We live in Him. He is the source of our life.
Here is the good news. We are in Christ, and He is in us. Our place in Him is permanent and eternal. The work of Jesus through His death, burial and resurrection guarantees our place in Him. Abiding in Christ is simply living where we have been placed.
Hi Bob,
Thanks for this post. I can relate to Roma when (he/she) says “I am learning more about grace”?
As I understand, one of the purposes of “the Law” was to lead us to Jesus Christ, as Lord and Savior, and for New Life.
John the Baptist preached repentance, as well as a multitude of others.
Today, there are street evangelists, telling the crowd to repent of their sins and turn to Christ. And of course the crowd is made up of believers and non believers. But for the sake of my question below, let us focus on non believers.
Is this an example of the proper use of the Law? As a tool, if you will, to call the unregenerate to repentance, and point them toward the Lord Jesus.
Any thoughts from the Word of God out there in cyber land?
Jim
From Cyber Land to Jim and anyone else, as people to people is the one through Bob George in and unto the grace of understanding our right standig with Christ in and through the Cross. I have been writing for a year now on a blogger and it is set up as like a magazine style so one if ever goes there could just scroll down and pick a subject of their choice. I just finished writing a long one about this amazing grace that has been delivered to us as a gift.
I posted it here, see if it is worth the time to read?
YOU HAVE THE RIGHTEOUS IF YOU HAVE THE PEACE THAT PASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING, QUIETNESS AND CONFIDENCE
This is the righteousness that comes from God through believing God at his word
You see when Christ being the Father’s Son went to the Cross and die it was to free his Chosen ones that just could not complete the Law of Moses, to stop the sacrificial system that they were under. None of their consciences were ever cleared form being guilty remorse was constant, for they had to sacrifice yearly, kill an innocent animal shed its blood in order to have their sins that they had committed transferred from them to the innocent animal. Now if this was you having to do this how would you feel?
So let us look at some scripture pertaining to this.
Hebrews 9:9
This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper.
So tell me is anyone of you having a conscience of sin trying to stop it and asking God for help, as well as asking for forgiveness every time you sin? How has that been working out, are you getting better and then worse never stopping as God wants you to? God doesn’t promote sin does God? Getting tired of it? Frustrated, are you ready to see what God says about the conscience concerning sin?
Therefore do you now do you see that you might have a conscience that is not able to clear as the above verse has stated about the First Chosen?
Do you think by chance that God wants us to have a conscience of sin or clear ones conscience of sin?
Hebrews 9:14
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
So by the above scripture it is saying that Christ’s death was to clear ones conscience form sin. Do you read the same? Acts that lead to death are what? Sin right?
So what do we do, from what we see it is intended by God to clear our conscious from even thinking of sin yes? So
Hebrews 10:22
let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
What is Faith, is it none other than Belief, trust in God? So that Scripture said in full assurance of Faith right?
So we are to have our consciences cleared of sin so let’s look further and see how God accomplished this?
Romans 3:25
God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—
God at the cross took the sins away he paid the debt for them in place of all those that had sinned beforehand yes?
Romans 12:1
[A Living Sacrifice] Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Now curiosity here, could this offering of our bodies that are not Holy to God be made Holy by God through the death, where we die with Christ in the dead Spirit of our minds, and then b0e made new alive here and now with Christ? This very moment is anything possible with God? Yes all things are possible with God.
Romans 6 New International Version (NIV)
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ
(the consciousness of)
6 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (Now this baptism is the Holy Ghost baptism) 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
This new life is raised in the Spirit, and dead in the flesh, dead to sin, one’s conscience cleared of all sin.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. (So are we going to be this believe this and have Faith in this truth told here by Paul) 6 For (Now) we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might (and is by belief, no doubt and it is) be done away with, that we should (how can we, as already stated in 6:1,2, since we are dead to sin conscience cleared) no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
You by belief here as being dead are freed from Law, sin, wrong doing, so do you believe this?
8 Now if (since) we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. (Following Paul so far we are dead to sin which makes us born again alive to God) 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; (and you either being in him now) death no longer has mastery over him. (Or you since your old self by belief is dead and your new self is alive) 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
Does this include us too? Yes I Believe so I am putting Faith in this that this is true and that God through Christ did at the cross by belief in take away all sin he has now purged (cleared) my sins I believe him and any of you are any of you going to change your minds from unbelief to belief?
11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ( and by being dead to sin the above verse or the next one cannot be)13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; so you now know this right that you are in Christ alive here and now yes? And offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. Thank you Father for taking me as I am and making me a new, by your Son, And thank you Jesus for what you did for me to place me here with Father and you, and thank you for the guide The Holy Ghost to teach me what I have learned here right now today. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
And sin is dead and that is correct Paul, it is no longer my Master as was, because now I know what Christ did for me at the cross thank you Father for this amazing salvation in you and by you. Now here on out by exercising Faith in Christ’s fantastic finished work we are pure and cleared from sin and death being raised from the dead here and now forever more the next verse now is we are pure because of Christ
Titus 1:15
To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
Do we see this now who we were before we came to full belief that by Christ he took all hindrances out of the way nailing them to the cross freeing us the believers with now a cleared conscience trusting what Christ has done for us, therefore we should not sin no more, but the potential for sin is there being in this world, and that is why we have:
1 John 2:1
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, WE HAVE AN ADVOCATE with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
John 16:7-11
7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
Now look at verse 9 about sin Holy Ghost is here to prove the world wrong about sin. The world and just about all the denominations in this world are preaching sin are they not? Does this clear your conscience of sin or keep you aware of sin?
Then Christ said because they do not believe in me Christ that is.
So did Christ take away the sin of the world or not in his Father’s sight? Let’s look at scripture
Romans 11:27
And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
2 Corinthians 3:14
But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.
2 Corinthians 3:16
But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Colossians 2:14
having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
Hebrews 9:28
so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Hebrews 10:3-5
3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. 4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
Hebrews 10:11
Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
Could the above verse mean that none of us can either and is why he wants us to have Faith in him that he at the cross took away all sin So that we can live here and now in the newness of life?
1 John 3:5
But you know that he appeared so that he might (did) take away our sins. And in him is no sin.
Since there is no sin in him, there cannot be any sin in you now could there? Maybe then to be in him he did take away all sin at the cross. I see no other way do you, for trying to do good just never made it good enough did it? For to be in him perfection is required, and we know having a conscience of sin just promotes sin right? Now our own experiences proves this, for none of us can ever be perfect in and of ourselves right?
Matthew 26:28
This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
I wonder why it says many and not all. Is there an elect as what the theologians have come up with and said is and argue over and over about?
I see it as not all will come to belief a lot will come to belief, but not all even though they have said they believe. How many do put their Faith in God and have left the Sacrificial system having a clear conscience of sin, knowing that it is Christ that has taken it all upon himself in order to present you before God as perfect by him, not by works but by Faith in his finished work at the cross?
So today put your Faith in him his finished work at the cross and be done with trying to be accepted
Thank you for hearing in the Spirit today and being set free form all the stress that is in this world that keeps one captive to their gain not yours.
Now you have a new mindset trusting God and aware of tragedies that are here and have come after you and might still, therefore remember the following verse:
John 16:33 New International Version (NIV)
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Since Jesus has (past tense) overcome the world and since you are in him dead to sin and alive therefore you will survive through any and all troubles that come upon you and know as Paul said:
Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Homwardbound
Is 1john 1:8,9 an old covenant command( confess or else) or a new covenant command?
oh, I know this one! Chpt. 1 in talking to the gnostics who did not believe in God and thought they had no sin. John is telling them that if they confess their sin God will forgive them. You will notice right after that in chapter 2 John is now talking to the church as he says,”my dear children”. Chapter 2 is for those who are in Christ.
Hope I didn’t step on your feet on this one Bob, I was just so excited to answer.
Awesome answer Roma
It was written to straighten out nosticism, nostice beleived that Christ did not come in the flesh and that they did not have a sin nature, therefore read from 1John 1:1 and see what John said about Jesus coming in the flesh we ater we touched, and if any man denies he was born with a sin nature he is a liar.
Now if you think Jessu did not come in the flesh then this is for you orif you think oyu were not born with a sin nature this is for you, otherwise it is not for you and there is nowhere in here or the word that we are to ask for forgiveness over and over after the new covenant was put in place by and through the death of Christ on the cross.
So,if we come to Jesus,not to get our sins forgiven or to purify ourselves,But for life,because we are forgiven but dead,then this must be an old covenant command, going back to bob’s original question?Sorry for all the commas.
First you agreed with God that when you wereborn of the flesh oyu were born dead in the Spirit and you needed life. Death first on our agreement that by the Law we are dead, but by the Spirit we are alive
It is receiving new life because we are past tense forgiven this is how we get life as a free gift
Hebrews 7:11-25
Jesus Like Melchizedek
11 If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood—and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood—why was there still need for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? 12 For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also. 13 He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar. 14 For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. 15 And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, 16 one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life. 17 For it is declared:“You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
18 THE FORMER REGULATION IS SET ASIDE BECAUSE IT WAS WEAK AND USELESS 19 (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.
20 And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, 21 but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him:
“The Lord has sworn
and will not change his mind:
‘You are a priest forever.’”
22 Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant.
23 Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24 but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them
This means that if you sin again he has already forgiven you, and by this alone should purge our consciences from any sin thought that used to take a stronghold on us
For as a man:
Galatians 6:7
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
Are we listening just think about stopping Smoking and what do you do? Just think about stopping that lustful thought and what do you do?
Do you get it now as a man /woman thinks and focuses on that they will do. Like anger after a while anger just flares up out of nowhere, but wait a minute it was honed Into place from a set of thoughts that are cemented in from the past, whether one is aware of this or not and when certain actions take place, in a flash we are outraged any of you here been here done this or do this?
You see we need to be purged, flushed out like a radiator in an automobile, and only God can do this, by our confession(s) not by asking for forgiveness over and over, by first being forgiven, then confess anything hidden if another is involved in anything hidden then we because of this love poured out on us we confess to them if they have been hurt by what is hidden or someone else is hurt by what is hidden.
Homwardbound
You either teach under the old covenant(Jesus) or you teach under the new covenant (Paul).Which did John teach under in his letters.
Frank Jesus taught in Matt, Mark, Luke and John the stringency of the Law he came to earth to fulfill the Law and Prophets
Matthew 5:17 new International Version (NIV)
The Fulfillment of the Law
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
Then he went out and prooved that he was sent from God his Father by miracles and also showed us under the Law that it was impossible for man to eneter heaven even the disciples asked this? after they watched the rich man go away sad for he could not give up his riches that is when christ said to the disciples with man it is impossible but with God it is possible. So after the cross is what Jesus was referring to, and he somewhere in there had the disciple pray the Lord’s prayer and this prayer that he had them praying was so that he would make it to the cross, Now after the cross under a new covenant that Lords prayer is filled we do not forgive to get forgiven we forgive because we are forgiven, we do not love in order to get loved we love because we are loved, Old Covenant New Covenant, big differance between the two, So Jesus then went to the cross and as he was about to give up the Ghost he yells IT IS FINISHED and died John 19:30, this brought in the New covenant Hebrews 9:15-17, Paul ratified what Jesus did, Paul was taught by Jesus out in the arabian desert Paul who was Saul who killed Christians had to be re-taught all over again, and that is exactly what Christ did is teach him a new. I think it 14 yeears missing and he did not confer with flesh and blood. He did shake hands with the apostles and they agreed between them that Paul would go the gentiles and they would stay to converting the Jews. Jesus’s job was to bring in the new covenant where Father under the New Covenant is no longer dealing with us on the basis of sin and death, today by belief Father is dealing with us on the basis of a new life a born again life in the Spirit of God, having our minds renewed and our consciences purged from sin
Hebrews
Hebrews 10:17
Then he adds:“Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”
under this new covenant we are freed from Law and turned onto a life of Love God’s love shed abroad in our new hearts given to us by God free of stress, worry, ailment and all Frank. Crossing the picket line is not easy as described in the book heaven is now by Andrew Farley
The new as well yet those apostles at first had trouble dis owning Law but they all got it finally, but even today man is stubborn and wants a piece of the action calling their works works of Faith.
Works are real but they are no longer mine they are his and I am elated to be a participant as in watching him use me as his vessel as he did Jesus