Introduction
Just as in the days of Jesus’
earthly sojourn, there are many who pride themselves on their
religious practices but have not yielded to His Lordship in
their lives. The Spirit of Christ has impressed on us to warn
many of you who call yourselves “Christian” but
neither belong to Him nor serve Him in loving obedient trust.
Beginning with this Teaching E-mail
we’re going to deal with a very substantive reality that
has been lost in much of western Christendom—the
appalling nature of each person’s sin and the need for
each one to repent.
The anti-Christ spirit that has control over so many who
call themselves “Christian” has emptied the work of
Jesus on the cross: to pay the
penalty for our sins and reconcile us to God. Rather than confronting people’s sin nature
and bringing them to repentance, many faith communities have
been influenced by the demonic Church Growth Move-ment. They
appease the sin nature of people by making Christianity
entertaining and pleasurable, never offending them with the
heinousness of their sin.
But man-pleasing religious get-togethers
in which sin is overlooked or excused are not the Kingdom of
righteousness Jesus envisioned. His name is brought down among
the nations because of this travesty!
Jesus proclaims to us an important element
that’s directly related to the expansion of His Kingdom: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His
name to all nations...” (Luke
24:47). Our Lord’s call for repentance wasn’t new.
God’s requirement for repentance is a consistent theme
throughout the Older Testament. In fact, the words
“repent” and “repentance” appear over
50 times in the Newer Testament. And, repentance is the first
stipulation our Father calls for in order to enter Covenant
with Him.
Early in the Newer Testament John the
Baptist heralds: “Repent, for the
Kingdom of heaven is near” (Matthew
3:2). In order to repent, you must have violated some law or
command of God. As we’ll see, the Older Testament, that
is, the Hebrew Bible, made crystal clear God’s righteous
laws and commands—the ways of life by which His people
would thrive and reap blessing.
The question for us today, and the point
of this e-mail, is this:
Do all (or any) of the laws, commands and
teachings of the Older Testament apply to us as followers of
Lord Jesus?
Is The Older Testament Less Important Than
The Newer Testament?
Are you among the multitude who are
missing the call to repent and as a result are not entering the
Kingdom? There is so little call to repentance throughout
western Christendom. A variety of reasons can be given, but all
add up to a failure to confront sin. And the neglect to confront the hideous nature
of sin from God’s perspective is due in part to a lack of understanding the
importance of the Older Testament.
Sin has
little meaning for many Christians today. In fact, few of the
churched truly value what Jesus accomplished on the cross in
paying the penalty for their sins. The base corruption of the
sinful, unforgiven heart holds little significance for those
who look with disdain on others but ignore their own inner
depravity.
Were you aware that until the mid-1950s
few congregations were incorporated in the United States? And
hardly any had mortgages to be repaid on their buildings. But
then a litigious scheme rose up to plant doubt and fear in
professional clergy: “What if
someone you counsel goes out and commits suicide?”
Lawyers traveled throughout the country
convincing clergy that they were legally
liable if this happened. But, if
their congregations incorporated, the corporation was now
liable. As a result, there is hardly a congregation today that
isn’t incorporated.
Once congregations became corporations,
banks were willing to lend them money. Thus arose the
“church mortgage”. In the decades to follow,
mortgages became the demonic yoke around the neck of clergy.
Rather than forthrightly and boldly serving the interest of the
King, many were forced to serve the next mortgage payment. And
to do this they needed people in
pews to pay it.
Because so many congregations have large
mortgages, many clergy feel compelled to do anything to attract
and retain people to pay the bills. As a result, “nickels
and numbers” are the rallying cry of success, rather than
Kingdom-hearted followers of Jesus abiding in communal
righteousness for His glory. Sadly, entertainment has replaced
the call to “Repent!!”
The burden to pay mortgages was the
fertile soil to spawn the man-centered “Church Growth
Movement”. Over the decades, ever slicker ways to attract
people were copied from the world system. Since the media
industry was so successful, entertainment replaced confronting
sin. The “penitent pew” that once occupied the
front of many congregations was replaced by a “worship
leader” and a lively team of performers.
Before we venture further into our
discussion, we want to ask you:
• Do you rely on the complete Bible
for how you live your life? Describe your personal assessment
of the Older Testament.
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• How relevant is the Older Testament
as a guide to your faith walk in Lord Jesus?
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What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
If your response to either of the
questions above had negative overtones, you may not be aware
that you’re being influenced by a man from the second
century who was branded a “heretic”. Let’s
review his heresy and its influence on contemporary
Christendom.
During the second century a businessman
named Marcion tried to persuade followers of Jesus that the
Older Testa-ment was inferior to the Newer Testa-ment. He
insisted that the Hebrew Scrip-tures be dismissed as
unauthoritative. Borrowing from Plato, Marcion maintained that
the God of the Older Testament was evil. By association,
therefore, the chosen people of that God, the Israelites, were
evil as well.
The God of the Hebrew Scriptures demanded
sacrifice and blind obedience to unreasonable laws, said
Marcion. The Newer Testament, however, introduced Jesus as a
“god of love”, one in whom there was no
relationship to the wrathful deity of the Older Testament.
Coinciding with Marcion’s influence,
the Greek philosophers who had converted to Christianity allegorized much of
the Older Testament. These men of renown refused to recognize
the Hebrew Bible passages as a historical
narrative containing laws and
commands so that people might be able to have a right
relationship with God. Instead, the converted philosophers
altered the scriptural meaning to “sanitize” the
earthly reality these accounts depicted. Some even divided God
into a discarded “Older Testament” deity of the Law
and emphasized instead a “Newer Testament” Lord of
grace who overlooks their sins.
While Marcion’s teaching was
ultimately denounced and he himself ex-communicated, his views
still permeate western Christianity by continuing to influence
the negative view of many toward the Older Testament. You may
be someone who has ignored or discounted these essential
writings as irrelevant to anyone but Jews. But whenever you
think (or are taught) that the Hebrew Bible is a secondary (or
less) reference source for your practice of faith and conduct,
you are under the influence of Marcion’s teaching.
You’ve divided God.
[For more on the loss of reliance on the
Older Testament, see Discussing How
To Restore The Early Church,
Section 2, Lesson 15.]
How Does God Perceive
The Older Testament?
“‘Whoever trusts in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within
him.’ By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who
believed in Him were later to receive. Up to that time the
Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been
glorified” (John 7:38,39).
The only Scripture in existence when Jesus
spoke these words was the Hebrew
Bible. How can you trust in Jesus ‘as the Scriptures call for’ if you don’t intimately know the
Older Testament as our gracious Father’s way of life for
His people?
These scriptures—the teachings of
Moses (Torah), the Psalms and the Pro-phets—were the
foundation on which Jesus based His teaching: the 1050 commands in
what is the New Covenant in Christ! The words of Jesus, of
Paul, of the other Newer Testament writers certainly
didn’t appear out of a vacuum or from personal
imagination.
Jesus pointedly affirmed the lasting
nature of God’s law and how our Lord made clear the
nature of these commands and prophecies:
Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets.
I did not come to destroy but to fulfill [to make full their meaning through
completion]. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the
law till all is accomplished [until everything that must happen has
happened] (Matthew 5:18).
Jesus directed a specific warning toward
anyone present or future who would teach the laws and commands
of the Hebrew Scriptures He had just emphasized in the previous
passage. Note that these commands are an integral part of the
Kingdom of Heaven of which He is King!
Anyone who breaks
one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do
the same will be called least in
the Kingdom of Heaven, but whoever practices
and teaches these commands will be
called great in the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 5:19).
Again, at the time of the Newer Testa-ment
writers, the only Scripture available was the Hebrew Bible. The
truths that equipped them for righteousness were the Hebrew
texts of their forefathers. Each of the 33 times the word scripture was used
in the Newer Testament was referring to the Hebrew commands, laws and prophecies given by God to the children of Israel!
Paul made clear the essential nature of
the Hebrew Bible for all who would follow Jesus as Lord:
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, so that the man of
God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16,17). He penned these words when
only the Older Testament existed.
Can you articulate WHY Jesus became
incarnate and died on the cross? We don't mean pat answers
like, "He died for my sins." The answer to the why is found in the Older Testament in
the 333 prophecies that pertain to our Lord's
incarnation, death and resurrection!
What do you think about this observation:
The degree to which you understand why Jesus died
on the cross is the intensity with which you cling to our King
and serve Him rather than yourself. When you understand our
Lord from the Older Testament, you gratefully embrace the
freedom and boundaries of God's commandments.
The why greatly increases your appreciation of the
sacrifice of Jesus — out of love for Him you want to
apply the entire Bible to your life and bring glory to our
Father.
The Law and Biblical (Christ-like)
Character Development
From Adam we have all inherited the desire
and propensity to sin: “Therefore,
just as through one man [Adam] sin entered the world, and death through
sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. For as
by one man’s disobedience [Adam] many were made sinners” (Romans 5:12,19a).
Cain was the first to inherit from his
father a desire to sin. Unlike his brother Abel, who resisted
sin and offered God an acceptable sacrifice, Cain gave way to
self-will and presented an unacceptable offering of his own
choosing. As a result his offering was rejected by God (Genesis
4:3-5). Sin then enticed Cain to murder Abel, an act which
didn’t pass unnoticed by God: “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And
if you do not do well, sin lies at the
door. And its desire is for you, but
you should rule over it” (Genesis
4:7).
The sin nature in each of us desires to do
whatever it pleases—and that’s the opposite of the way
God would have us live according to His commands and ways. Each
of us was born with a desire to sin rather than to do good. A
child needs help to not give in to their propensity to sin, so
parents are commanded to instill the law of God in them
(Deuter-onomy 6:4-9; Ephesians 6:4).
Training children in the laws of God and
living that way yourself is designed to impart righteous character.
Parents are the first and most influential people to help their
children become Christ-like in character. Keep in mind that
personality is not character. Everyone
is born with a personality, but no one is born with character!
Like your sin nature, your personality
(your response to the world around you) is inherited from your
parents. Char-acter, on the other hand, must be actively
instilled throughout your life, especially as you yield to the
Spirit of Christ in you and allow Him to transform you.
From the Bible’s standpoint:
Christ-like character may be viewed as
motivations that are no longer under the control of the sin
nature.
When a child or even an adult is trained
according to the laws and commands of God, His truth confronts
their sin nature. His laws are designed to produce biblical
character, that is, Christ’s likeness. This confrontation
can be a very painful process. The development of Christ-like
character causes us to separate from our own sinful
inclinations.
Let’s review God requirements of
parents and/or shepherds of His faith communities as they
pertain to developing biblical character.
• The development of biblical
character indicates embracing God’s laws.
• Biblical character reveals that His
laws are imprinted on your way of life. You uphold burdens and
responsibilities that your sinful inclinations alone would
avoid. Good manners, healthy relationships, responsible work
attitudes, and proper deference toward others to whom
it’s due are just a few factors that are part of biblical
character.
Every character quality you acquire is at
first constraining. That is, you’re no longer yielding to
your sin nature in that area. In the diagram above, your sin
nature wants to live in the red zone. The development of
biblical character constrains you to uphold righteous
motivations and actions.
Over time, as you see the beauty of the
different biblical character qualities, you appreciate them and
willingly keep yourself from giving in to your sin nature so
that you can grow in these attributes. For followers of Jesus,
our love for our Lord helps us appreciate that as each
Christ-like characteristic develops and deepens, we are
becoming more like our Lord. Love for Him and for others around
us compels us to want to be like Him more and more.
In Teaching E-mails to follow, we’ll
delve into the laws, commands and teachings found throughout
the Bible. We want to help you grasp how important God’s
laws are for you, especially if you yearn to be more like Jesus
and bring praise to Him.
In our next Teaching E-mail we’re
going to ask you the questions below. We want to include them
now for you to have a chance to study and discuss them.
• If laws in the Older Testament are
not repeated in the Newer Testament, does that mean they are no
longer in effect?
• Are there laws in the Older
Testament that no longer apply to followers of Jesus? Which
ones?
• In the teachings of Jesus, did He
do away with all of the Older Testament laws, or did He
strengthen and make full the meaning of them?
