The Gospel of the Covenant
is the Pilgrimage to Salvation

[click here for a printable copy]


Introduction
As you go through this study guide on the Gospel of the Covenant, you’ll come to understand that salvation is a pilgrimage, much like a marriage. Those who are welcomed at the Judgment Throne by the Lord will be His called, chosen and faithful followers (Revelation 17:14).
Jesus warned, “For many are called, but few are chosen (Matthew 22: 14). We are addressing in this article the chosen. The chosen, through the encouragement and support of others in the family of Jesus, still need to be found faithful when they reach the Judgment Throne. May each of us be found welcomed by our Lord.

When you hear the word “gospel”, what does it mean to you? In other words, if you consider yourself a Christian, can you articulate the gospel you embraced?
 
• Describe the biblical basis that substantiates why you believe you are saved.

Let’s discern now if the gospel you wrote down matches the true Gospel our Father established in Jesus. The reason we’re putting you on the spot right away is that there are so many false gospels. One of the difficulties surrounding “faith” is a resistance to consider that you might be wrong or may have believed a lie. Nobody really wants to find out that any of their faith practices are in error.
In recent years studies have been conducted that indicate the bitter fruit of the false gospels so pervasive in the world today.

• Ray Comfort, an international evangelist, reports that he has found less than 10% of those who go forward at evangelistic crusades continue to follow Jesus afterward.

• A recognized evangelistic association in the US found that less than 4% of the people who go forward at their crusades continue to follow Jesus afterward.

• A well-known and widely respected campus ministry found less than 5% of the students who had been active in their ministry are following Jesus 5 years later.

• The divorce rate in the “Bible Belt” is 50% higher than among non-Christians in the US. This sad statistic may seem unrelated to the Gospel, but, as we shall show later, the true Gospel and God’s purpose for marriage are intricately connected. We contend that the gospel of much of the Bible Belt is in error, and contributes to the epidemic divorce rate among people who call themselves “Christian”.

Because of their concern that they may have embraced one of the false gospels so popular today, a number of people have asked us to write about the Gospel that the earliest Church embraced. In order to accomplish this, we have developed this study guide.
Before we begin looking at the Covenant foundations of the true Gospel, ponder two key points:

1. Embracing the true Gospel that is offered by our Father starts you on a pilgrimage that will transform you into increasing Christ-likeness, and ultimately finds you welcomed at the Judgment Throne.

2. Embracing a false gospel sets you on a counterfeit path that completely misses the salvation our Father offers, resulting in your demise in hell.

We encourage you to take your time as you go through this study. The Gospel which the earliest Church embraced requires far more than your mental agreement with the “gospel idea”. As you will see, to embrace the Gospel our Father offers demands everything you are and have.

Never Assume That Either You or Someone Else Is A Christian!

When people who call themselves “Christian” first encounter each other, they often assume that the other person is a “Christian” because he/she claims to be. Of all the areas in which you need discernment, this is THE area in which you should assume nothing! Every person is either the Father’s child or Satan’s. There is no middle ground in the Bible. As the apostle John clarifies, apart from true followers of Jesus, “the whole world lies in the power of the Evil One” (1 John 5:19).
The Bible warned that “wolves in sheep’s clothing” would attempt to infiltrate and destroy our families and faith communities. Satan, the deceiver, enjoys creating false gospels and penetrating faith communities with individuals he has under his controlling influence. Therefore we must choose to appropriate the weaponry with which Jesus has armed His own: “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us discernment, so that we may know who is genuine (1 John 5: 20a).
We wrote in one of our newsletters about satanists in Connecticut who had infiltrated certain congregations. In one of the largest Baptist churches in the state, a woman satanist became superintendent of the Sunday school. She’d been sent to “water down” the curriculum. If it hadn’t been for the spirit of discernment in the pastor’s wife, this woman would have gotten away with her insidious assignment. 
How many other faith communities are now being infiltrated because Christians assume too much? And how many “Christians” have been duped into embracing a satanically-inspired false gospel, totally missing the Father’s Good News and the promises it brings?

• How about you? When someone tells you that he or she is a Christian, do you accept them as such just because they say so? Why?

• What discerning questions could you ask to determine if that’s really the case? Why is it important to ask?

• Before beginning Part 1, can you define the biblical definition of “covenant”?



Part 1  
The Covenant Basis to the True Gospel

Our Father — A Covenant-giver
The early Jewish followers of Jesus — and most of the earliest followers were Jewish! — clearly understood the significance of biblical covenants. Today these are understood dimly at best. God had established covenants with His people through Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. Jeremiah had prophesied that the Jews could expect yet another covenant, one in which Torah, the teachings of God’s way of life, would be written in their hearts.
In terms of covenants, God is the initiator between Himself and His people. Each covenant comprises distinct parameters:

• Our Father’s stipulations in order for man to accept the covenant.
• His promises of blessing for obedience.
• His judgment for breaking the covenant.

*** Read Deuteronomy, chapter 28, to deepen your understanding that alongside God’s promise of blessing stands His judgment for refusing to obey.

Paul reminded the Gentiles (the non-Jews) about covenants as part of the heritage they’d received from the Jewish people: “Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises” (Romans 9:4). The writer to the Hebrews builds the foundation of the Messiahship of Jesus on the institution of a new covenant: “To Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).
This phraseology may  sound strange to us in the postmodern West. But what a thundering impact Jesus’ words must have had on the Jewish ears which first heard them: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28). Suddenly in that upper room that evening, it was a new ball game on earth — a new covenant was transcending the old! 
This is the Gospel that was proclaimed to Abraham, foretelling that Gentiles were part of God’s plan for redemption:

[Abraham] trusted in God and was faithful to him, and that was credited to his account as righteousness. Be assured, then, that it is those who live by trusting and being faithful who are really children of Abraham. Also the Hebrew Scriptures, foreseeing that God would consider the Gentiles righteous when they live by trusting and being faithful, told the Good News to Abraham in advance by saying, “In connection with you, all the Gentiles will be blessed.” So then, those who rely on trusting and being faithful are blessed along with Abraham, who trusted and was faithful (Galatians 3:6-9, JNT).

Today, we can’t adequately appreciate the new Covenant offered to us through Jesus unless we have a heart-knowledge of the old covenants as the early Jewish followers did. The sacrifice of Jesus inaugurated a new covenant, but the Gospel — the full meaning of that covenant Good News — is found in the Hebrew Bible, the Older Testament.

• When you decided to follow Jesus, did you have any concept of the covenant relationship into which you were entering?

• What did the “blood of Jesus” mean to you at that time? How has your understanding of the significance of His blood changed since then?

Our Father — A Covenant-keeper
As we discuss the facets of biblical covenants, you may wonder why they are so important. Anchor for yourself that embracing the Gospel of the Covenant is similar to entering into marriage and staying married. Our Father intended for the marriage covenant to be the physical representation of the spiritual Covenant He offers us through Jesus.
God refers to Himself in a “matrimonial” context with his people. In the Older Testament our Father describes Himself as the “Husband” of Israel: “For your Maker is your husband — the Lord Almighty is his name — the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth” (Isaiah 54: 5). 
The followers of Jesus are His bride, and He awaits her at the wedding banquet: “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready” (Revelation 19: 7). As you read, continue to remind yourself that the covenants of salvation and marriage are intricately linked.
Like marriage, our relationship with our Lord is a heart issue. Jesus is our heart circumciser, so that our minds may then yield to His purposes. The Gospel calls for loving trust in Jesus in order to enter a Covenant relationship with our heavenly Father. Although covenants permeate the Bible, most of us have an ambiguous understanding, if any, of their significance.
Many see covenants as some form of contract, but nothing could be further from the truth. When Jesus stresses, “This is the blood of the covenant,” He is not focusing on the cup of wine. Rather, He is directing our attention to the goal of our Father, that all who put their trust in the atoning blood of Jesus may live in intimate relationship with Him. The emphasis is on the relationship with Him. For instance, when a couple marries, which is more important: the ceremony, or the loving relationship which the ceremony makes possible? Of course, the ongoing relationship!
The word “covenant” can mean “to come into union with”, particularly as it pertains to a marital relationship. The covenant our Father offers invites you to live in union with Him. Union implies a oneness, and an ongoing pilgrimage with Him on earth until the time when your name is read aloud before the host of heaven.
Our goal in keeping the Covenant is to live in a way that brings glory to our Father. In fact, any goal or purpose that doesn’t incorporate glorifying our Father will ultimately prove idolatrous. Your heart’s desire for anything but His glory will lead you down the wrong path of self-focus and self-gratification to ask, “What blesses me in this relationship?”
Our Father is a Covenant-keeper. That is, He doesn’t break the covenants He makes with men. But to their own detriment, men do. As we shall see, even in the Covenant of precious blood offered to us, we can break this covenant with dire consequences.

• If you are married, how could a deeper understanding of your marriage covenant change your relationship with your spouse?

• If you are married, how does the word “union” display itself in your marriage?

• If you are single, how does your understanding of your “marriage relationship” with Jesus affect your walk with Him?


Covenants Must be Both Ratified and Consummated

Every covenant requires both ratification and consummation to confirm that the conditions of the covenant have been accepted by both parties. In the wedding ceremony the couple ratifies the intent of the marriage. A couple ratifies their marriage as they pledge from their hearts their vows, such as, “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” 
Pure motive is crucial in order for a biblical covenant to come into existence. Consider Jonathan’s motive when he established a covenant with David: “And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself” (1 Samuel 18:3). Isn’t this the purity of devotion required of a prospective husband? “In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself” (Ephesians 5:28).
Our Father scrutinizes our motives before entering into a Covenant with us — a relationship which He initiates. As Jesus confirmed, no one can come to Him unless the Father draws him or her (John 6:44). Hopefully, a prospective groom and bride have already demonstrated that they want each other with pure motives to fulfill their covenant responsibilities to each other. If the groom was marrying the bride only for her money, the covenant framework could be nullified. Or if the woman wanted to get married only to escape a difficult home situation, her motives could be judged as corrupt.
Although ratified at the ceremony, the covenant of marriage is not consummated, however, until the couple shares their first intercourse. The ceremony ratifies the couple’s intent to enter into the covenant of marriage, but consummation is the critical part that seals the covenant. The seal is the physical sign that the covenant has been consummated. This applies to all of the covenants our Father has offered mankind. Each covenant evidences a seal of consummation:

Covenant  >>>> Sign of Consummation
Noah  >>>>>>> rainbow in the sky
Abraham  >>>> circumcision
Moses >>>>>> sprinkling of blood
Jesus  >>>>>> receiving the Holy Spirit    in spiritual union
Marriage  >>>> breaking the hymen in physical union
 

It’s a sign of our sinful times that the sign of marital consummation, breaking the hymen, occurs so often before the wedding ratification. Sadly, so many who become Christians after marriage fail to grasp the seriousness of either their Covenant with the Father or their marriage covenant. 
These two covenants are inseparably linked. Embracing the Covenant our Father offers and the marriage covenant are the two most important relationships people will ever embrace. Nothing should compete with either. The marriage covenant is intended to be the physical representation of our spiritual Covenant with our Father.
Through the myriad of counterfeit gospels and rampant sexual promiscuity even within the church, current understanding of these covenants disregards the holiness our Father intended. It is Sue’s and my intent to help restore an understanding of covenant relationships that our Father prescribes for the generations to come.

• If you are married, did you consummate your relationship prior to the covenant ceremony? Do you think this hurt your relationship after you were married?



• Have you asked forgiveness from our Lord in order that you might undergo change in your hearts toward each other as covenant partners?




Intense Devotion and Desire Needed To Enter Into a Covenant

Visualize our Father’s view of the covenant He offers through His Son by studying the covenant young David made with Jonathan, Saul’s son:

After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself...And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt (1 Samuel 18:1-4).
What a demonstration of intimate devotion! The intensity of David’s loyalty to Jonathan pours forth in David’s lament after Jonathan’s death: “I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women” (2 Samuel 1:26). As we discuss how the covenant was enacted and consummated, notice that the ceremony is not as important as the deep yearning to enter into a covenant relationship. Don’t get hung up on form here. The ceremonial form only ratifies the intense desire that is already present in the heart.
David compares the love relationship in his covenant with Jonathan as greater than that found with a woman. A millennium later, Jesus voices from the Hebrew Scriptures the intense love that is required to embrace our Father’s covenant: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). 
The intensity of commitment our Father requires in the “Greatest Command-ment” is a condition for ratifying the Cove-nant. The same intensity of relationship is enjoined in Matthew 10:37: “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Here Jesus affirms the surpassing devotion that’s required in the Covenant our Father offers to those who follow His Son.

• A noted writer admitted that until he had cancer, he’d always thought Jesus was #1 in his life. After confronting his disease, however, he realized that Jesus had been #4. On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your level of love for our Lord?




• Whom do you love more than you love Him? Your parents? Spouse? Children? (Now, be honest. Your Father knows your heart anyway.)


Devotion to Your Covenant-Partner
At our wedding 34 years ago, the ceremony only ratified my heart’s desire for Sue to be my wife:
 
•  I wanted her.
•  I wanted no other.
•  I was in covenant with her in my heart first, before the ceremony took place.

This is the same process in the Covenant offered by our Father through Jesus. Do you really want Him? Do you want with all your heart to live as our Father’s child? Are you willing to forsake all other goals or values that compete with your devotion to Him?

Reviewing a Covenant Ceremony
Research into ancient customs illustrates the type of ceremony that David and Jonathan enacted to ratify and consummate their covenant. They would have cut an animal in two and placed the halves between them as they faced each other, half on one side and half on the other. Then both men would have walked through the middle of the two pieces doing a figure “8” around each other. The blood of the animal would drench their feet. The figure “8” signifies infinity. The covenant was to last forever, and was ratified by the blood of the sacrifice.
Their exchange of valued possessions would be the physical sign evidencing to others that a covenant existed between them. There must be a sign that a covenant exists. This is a vital point for later discussion of the Covenant with our Father that is made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus.
Sometime later, at great personal danger, Jonathan sought out David as he was hiding from Saul at Horesh (see 1 Samuel 23:18). There the two renewed their covenant to confirm that the conditions under which the covenant had been established were still viable; nothing had changed.
When a man has intercourse with his wife, they are renewing the covenant. The normal place of covenant renewal is their bed. Therefore the writer of Hebrews could admonish, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure [undefiled], for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (13: 4).
When you receive the body and blood of Jesus, you are renewing your covenant with our Father. Covenant renewal isn’t to be taken lightly. The Corinthian believers were taking the body and blood without discernment, and Paul warned them, “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep [died]” (1 Corinthians 11:30). Communion is much more than bread and wine consumption, or spiritual commemorance. It is the precious covenant renewal with our Father, remembering that which Jesus has accomplished on our behalf until He comes back for us.

• How seriously do you take renewing your covenant with our Father in Jesus when you share in communion?



• Have you ever experienced consequences from partaking of communion lightly or with known sin in your heart?



Breaking a Covenant Means Death
What wonderful promises are showered on those who embrace the Covenant our Father offers through Jesus! Thank Him again as you breathe in the joy of a right relationship with our Lord!

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:19-23) 

Continuing on in the same passage is the warning against those who break the Covenant:If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God” (Hebrews 10:26,27).
Entering into a covenant in ancient times was so serious that if a man broke a covenant, one of his own family members were obligated to kill him. Covenant-breakers didn’t deserve to live. Each of the covenants our Father establishes offers promises of blessing for those who keep their part of the covenant. However, covenants also contain judgment or curses for those who break the covenant.
The Older Testament is a great source for understanding our Father’s dealings with covenant-breakers. Paul urged the Corinthian believers (and us as well) to pay heed to God’s relationship with Israel: “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10: 11).
The examples and accounts in the Hebrew Scriptures encourage us that God keeps His promises. They also warn us that God does not change, and that dire consequences await covenant violators! For example, Solomon reiterated that people have an ongoing obligation when they enter into Covenant with their Lord: “You keep covenant with your servants and show them grace, provided they live in your presence with all their heart (1 Kings 8: 23).
Tragically, time and again the kingdoms of both Israel and Judah roused the anger of God by breaking their part of the covenant, paying the penalty of famine, plague, and banishment from the Land He’d set apart for them: “This happened because they did not heed the voice of the Lord their God, but violated his covenant, everything that Moses the servant of God had ordered them to do, and would neither hear it nor do it (2 Kings 18: 12).
The Older Testament ends with Malachi pronouncing the judgment of God to those who broke marriage covenants through divorce. We today need to pay particular attention to the intensity of our Father’s regard for the marriage covenant.

The LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the LORD made them one [to live in union]? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. ‘I hate divorce,’ says the LORD God of Israel, ‘and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,’ says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith’” (Malachi 2:14-16).
 
Notice our Father’s purpose for the marriage covenant: “Because he was seeking godly offspring.” Every covenant initiated by our Father entails purposes for the person who embraces the covenant to fulfill. In the Covenant offered to us through Jesus, His purpose is emphasized in Ephesians 2:8-10: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
In the Covenant with our Father through Jesus, the blessings as well as the warning of curses apply. The covenant is offered through Jesus. But, we can break this covenant with terrible consequences, just as our disobedient spiritual ancestors experienced.
Pay attention to the interconnection between the covenant-breakers of Moses’ time and those who insult the Holy Spirit by forsaking the Covenant with Jesus:

Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ and again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:28-31).

Settle this in your mind if you are going to be found called, chosen, and most importantly, faithful: You are capable of breaking the Covenant with your Father. Our Father’s part of the Covenant will never be broken, but we, as the Older Testament has shown, are not always that faithful. Consider these passages of Scripture offered by Newer Testament writers as a warning to those who are believers:

Watch out, brothers, so that there will not be in any one of you an evil heart lacking trust, which could lead you to apostatize from the living God! Instead, keep exhorting each other every day [keep working out your salvation together], as long as it is called Today, so that none of you will become hardened by the deceit of sin. For we have become sharers in the Messiah, provided, however, that we hold firmly to the conviction we began with, right through until the goal is reached (Hebrews 3: 12-14, JNT).

We, as brothers and sisters in Jesus, need relational encouragement and diligent daily alertness. Deceitful teachings and temptations could harden our hearts against the truth of the Living God.

Therefore, let us be terrified of the possibility that, even though the promise of entering his rest remains, any one of you might be judged to have fallen short of it; for Good News has been proclaimed to us, just as it was to them. But the message they heard didn’t do them any good, because those who heard it did not combine it with trust (Hebrews 4:1,2, JNT).

Sobering words, aren’t they? Especially when considered in contrast with the “easy believism” of so many counterfeit gospels that excuse sin under the guise of “grace”. And if those warnings aren’t enough, then seriously consider this truth: 

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace (Hebrews 6:4-6).

How diligent each of us must be in a walk of obedient trust that is grounded in love so that we can withstand the temptations of the world, our own fleshly desires, and demonic assaults! 

If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them (2 Peter 2:20,21).
 
Speaking to fellow Christians, Paul warns, “If you live according to your old nature, you will certainly die [spiritually, since everyone dies physically]; but if, by the Spirit, you keep putting to death the practices of the body, you will live” (Romans 8: 13).
It’s not the actions that we do that count with our Lord, but our hearts being filled with His Spirit so that our lives bring Him glory: “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:22,23). Here Jesus is turning away people who had walked in the prophetic, cast out demons, and even performed miracles — yet they failed to do what His Father in heaven wanted (Matthew 3:2). They were known by Him as evildoers.
Another word for “evildoer” is “worker of lawlessness” — someone who has no regard for keeping His commands. Richard Wurmbrand, a Jewish Christian who suffered for his faith for fourteen years in a Rumanian prison, wrote several years ago, “We live in the last days. Morality, laws, and the standards break down. The heresy of antinomianism [belief that God’s laws are invalid for today], of lawlessness united with religiosity, is very dangerous today. Let us beware of it.”
Yes, let’s beware so that we can be found faithful when our time comes! (See 2 Timothy 3:1-5.)


• Do you believe a person can break the Covenant? Explain.



• After reviewing the passages that deal with covenant breaking, what changes do you think God is calling you to make so you can walk diligently in obedient trust with Him?



Our Father’s Covenant Ceremony
Perhaps now you can grasp the seriousness that surrounds embracing the Gospel our Father offers as a new Covenant. When you are baptized, you are making a vow to our Father through your immersion: “[T]he water of immersion, which is not the removal of dirt from the body, but one’s pledge to keep a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah” (1 Peter 3:21, JNT). Baptism is an active response that confirms your heart’s desire.
Followers of Jesus serve a covenant-giving Father. And, He lovingly accepts covenant-keeping children. So when Jesus says, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:24), He is confirming far more than the self-serving motives of today’s so-called “gospels.” This Cove-nant calls for entering into THE most important intimate relationship because it involves eternal consequences. The goal is to live in covenant relationship with our Father, that is, to lovingly obey our part of the Covenant since He is so faithful to fulfill His part.
Picture yourself spiritually ratifying and consummating the conditions of our Father’s Covenant. Father God stands opposite you. You agree in your heart to the stipulations of the Covenant. When He sees the desire of your heart to want this relationship above all things, He walks through the blood of the sacrifice with you. And Who is the sacrifice? Jesus. You and our Father both do a figure “8” in the blood of Jesus. This ratifies the Covenant through the blood of the Lamb. What consummates the Covenant? Our Father seals you with the Holy Spirit, guaranteeing that if you do not break the Covenant, you will have redemption on the Last Day.
This Covenant is no small matter! You no longer belong to Satan. You have been adopted into our Father’s family: “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir (Galatians 4:6,7). No longer being a slave to sin frees you to walk in obedient trust!
Keep in mind that receiving the Holy Spirit as a sign of the consummation is vital to your ability to keep the Covenant. Paul repeats several times that the seal of the Holy Spirit consummates the Covenant. “Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Corinthians 1:21,22).
The presence of the Spirit in our lives guarantees our Father’s faithfulness to set His children apart for His purposes. “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit ...And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 1:13, 4:30). 
Our Father is for those He has marked with His seal! But He extends to us the same warning He gave to His people through the apostle Peter. Believers of the first century were bombarded with entangling temptations and distortions of the truth just as we are today: “Dear friends, since you know this in advance, guard yourselves so that you will not be led away by the errors of the wicked and fall from your own secure position” (2 Peter 3:17, JNT).
Noticeable signs are evident when you are indwelt by the Spirit. As much as the rainbow, circumcision, or David wearing Jonathan’s robe are recognizable, the Bible makes plain the signs that reveal that our Father’s Covenant has been both ratified and consummated in you.

• What went through your mind as you pictured yourself and our Father walking through the blood of Jesus to ratify your covenant?

• How would you articulate the assurance God gives those who trust in Jesus by being “marked” by His seal?


Place a check mark next to the indicator that best describes you.  
Discuss your answers with someone who knows you well.

Covenant Gospel      
__Fully aware of your own depravity                      
__Sin grieves your heart      
__Ongoing desire for intimacy with our Father    
__Bible is life-giving resource to glorify the Father    
__Ongoing heart change by the Holy Spirit    
__Living sacrificially for Jesus      
__Others see dramatic difference in you      
__Worship expressed from a cleansed, exuberant heart  
__Fellowship gathering spurs you on to greater courage    
__Opportunistic to represent Jesus in the world    
__Confident of the Spirit’s indwelling    
__Life empowered by the Spirit      

False gospel
__I’m okay just as I am
__Hardly conscious of sins
__Father hardly considered, or no relationship at all
__Bible studied for knowledge, not a way of life
__Same motivations / no heart change
__Avoid suffering or rejection at all cost
__No substantial difference from world’s values
__Worship is self-pleasing; no regard for repentance
__Service attendance epitomizes your religious expression
__Apathetic toward the salvation of others
__No assurance of the Spirit’s presence
__Religious life based on own efforts


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 2

Discerning the True Gospel from False Ones

Signs of False Gospels

No matter what size faith community you are in, Satan will send as many people as he can who have embraced a false gospel. Since the Holy Spirit does not dwell in these individuals, leaders have to use “prop up” programs to keep them coming:

• If people can’t worship in “Spirit and truth,” they’ll seek worship that entertains them. Worship leaders will try to conjure a “spiritual” mood. Success is measured by the numbers who attend your services rather than on their impact in the world.

• Without the Spirit Who gives life to God’s Word, reading the Bible is a chore. People devoid of the Spirit look to someone else to teach them, someone not relationally close enough to confront them to live its truth.

• In order to attract more people, you rely more and more on programs and services that cater to the carnal nature. You enable husbands to neglect their spiritual responsibilities at home. They “outsource” their wives and children to others for spiritual development, such as Sunday schools and youth programs.

Religious systems that cater to false gospels operate through administrative busyness — keeping all the programs running efficiently. Leaders in the system may be called “pastor” or “elder”, but they are in reality administrators in charge of programs — functioning more as managers than as spiritual role models and leaders.
If you’re a person who has embraced a false gospel, you’ll seek out faith communities that can fulfill any of the above-mentioned needs. When you have embraced the true Gospel, none of the above will be your motivation.
Mission agencies that are still sending missionaries to the same places generation after generation because they failed to raise up spiritual leadership from among the indigenous people should question the gospel they share. Without the Holy Spirit, mission agencies will have to “prop up” the people they serve for generations.
A few years ago we visited a school for Native American children. The missionary principal was proud that he had quadrupled enrollment during his relatively short tenure. I asked him how many Native people had ever taught at the school during its 75 years of existence. “None,” he replied. I asked, “Don’t you see a problem with that?” He didn’t.

Satan is a deceiver. Wherever our Father has shed the light of His love and established Covenant with His chosen, the Adversary will counterfeit that truth with his own false gospels. In the 10 years we have shared the Gospel embraced by the earliest Church at our seminars around the country, we have found that only 3 out of every 100 people have a ratified-consummated relationship with our Father. Most admit themselves that there is no sign of the Spirit’s presence in their lives. They were deemed “saved” by someone when they agreed with a few Bible verses and “went forward.”
Tragically, the majority shared one issue in common that kept our Father from ratifying and consummating the Covenant: bitterness. We’ll deal with this issue shortly.
Always be on guard against counterfeit “Good News.” Even the first-century Galatians were warned to beware of a perverted gospel: “Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” (Galatians 1:8). Any so-called “gospel” of today that differs materially from the Gospel understood by the earliest followers of Jesus is a path to hell.
Satan is shrewd. He doesn’t care how you don’t get to heaven, as long as you don’t get there! Some people mistakenly assume that God will excuse them at the judgment throne for not knowing the true Gospel. The Bible states otherwise.
Entering into Covenant with our Father is first and foremost a heart issue. It’s a step of yearning to live in union with Him, as much a heart issue as a faith issue. Covenanting with our Father is never a mere cognitive act. You don’t enter our Father’s Covenant through your mind’s analysis
Many of the false gospels ask you to agree with a few Bible verses. Then someone ratifies you as “saved.” Generally these verses are lifted solely from the Newer Testa-ment. No covenant relationship is established, and definitely no consummation. All you end up with is human ratification. 
Most likely there was no requirement for repentance, a determination to turn from the sins that needed to be forgiven and come to the Father through Jesus for reconciliation. Thus, the Holy Spirit did not enter to consummate the Covenant because no covenant relationship existed. Yet, others will assume you’re a “Christian.” Deluded, you’ll never be welcomed into heaven without the Spirit.
Human ratification is occurring in this country in epidemic proportions. The false gospels of today banner “getting you saved” or proffer “fire” insurance. How far short of our Father’s goal of intimate relational union they fall!

Put in the context of a marriage analogy, a cognitive gospel would be if someone shared with Sue and me before we ever met a list of personality characteristics about each other. Both of us liked what we read and, as a result of our positive response to the character qualities, we’re told, “You and Sue are married!” Still, we haven’t met, we have no viable relationship, and have definitely experienced no consummation. But we are assured by others, “You’re married!” I know about her and she knows about me, but sadly, we don’t know each other. It’s impossible to live in covenant union this way.

This is the same foolishness of the false gospels. They require nothing more than cognitive assent to Bible facts but bypass the intimacy and devotion of a covenant union with our Father.

• How would you differentiate between a cognitive “getting saved” gospel and a “covenant union with our Lord” Gospel?




• Having read thus far, what type of gospel depicts the one you currently believe? Does a change need to be made?




Many False Gospels / One True Gospel
Salvation was understood by the earliest Church to occur at the end of the pilgrimage. For those who endure to the end our Lord promises, “He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels (Revelation 3:5). This is the moment of salvation! 

To keep your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life calls for two essential elements.
 
Justification — placing your trust in, and continuing to trust in, the shed blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins

Sanctification — the lifelong purifying process of the Holy Spirit that enables you to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ so that you can endure to the end

The pilgrimage of a Jesus follower:
Begins with Justification, your Spiritual Rebirth;
Continues a lifelong process of Sanctification;
Culminates ultimately in Salvation before the Throne.

True Gospel:
Justification + Sanctification = Salvation
The true Gospel is a pilgrimage to the moment of salvation when you appear before the Lord. Let’s relate this concept to marriage. Justification is the day you get married, and sanctification is living out your marriage. Marriage must be worked out together until the covenant ends when death parts the couple.
Justification frees us from the penalty of our sins: “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!” (Romans 5:9). Jesus paid the price. Accepting the atoning work of His death alone justifies us before our Father and reconciles us to Him. Sadly, many false gospels contend that justification is salvation. But these gospels leave out other verses pertinent to our salvation pilgrimage, the aspect of our faith that is sanctification. 
In its fullest sense, sanctification may be described as:

A lifelong process by which the Holy Spirit changes our character, that is, our motivation and behavior, into conformity to Jesus.

“All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved (Matthew 10:22). Our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted around the world for Jesus understand this truth far better than we in the West do. Keeping your focus on living in obedient trust in our Lord Jesus produces evidence of His grace in your life. And by focusing on Him as He reveals Himself through His Spirit and His Word, you can discern error and avoid deception.