Jesus Unmasked: The Truth Will Shock You (19 page)

Rest on Jesus. He has done it all. He will do it all. Let Him pay your fine with the Father and bring you safely home.

Chapter 18 — Jesus Is the New Covenant, Part One

There are two types of people who take vacations:

>
People who take historic bus tours.

>
People who mock people who take historic bus tours. Especially duck tours.

While you do indeed lose your dignity on a double-decker bus with a perky tour guide, you definitely learn a lot. For instance, if you took a bus tour through the historic and humid city of Savannah, you would learn that the founders of this mossy city wanted to outlaw three things.

1. Alcohol. Baptists would have flocked to Savannah if that had passed.

2. Roman Catholics. Baptists would probably love that too. The founders of Savannah were Protestants who well remembered the treatment they received in Europe under Roman Catholic monarchs like bloody Queen Mary.

3. Lawyers. Everyone would love that. The founders knew that clever lawyers could make a hash out of what was plain and turn something simple into complete confusion.

Thanks to many (not all) modern-day lawyers, legal contracts are a dime a dozen. Scratch that — they are $250 per hour a dozen, but if you can afford a more expensive lawyer than the lawyer who drew up the contract, you can get yourself out of just about any modern-day contract.

Not So With Covenants

In Bible days, a covenant (another word for “contract”) was a “till death do us part” kind of affair. Actually, it was more than that — covenants were an “if I break this, you can kill me” kind of contract. Needless to say, a man did not enter into a covenant lightly.

A covenant was a two-way commitment unto death with a willingness to die or be killed in defending one’s covenant partner. There isn’t a lawyer on the planet who would draw up a contract like that today.

A Big Deal

The Mosaic covenant was cut between God and man in the 14th centur
y
b.c
. For
the next eight centuries, the Mosaic covenant was the law of the land.

Suddenly, a prophet named Jeremiah made a major announcement: God is going to cut a new covenant. As there had only been a few biblical covenants in the history of the world, this was a very, very big deal.

“Behold, days are
coming
,” declares the
Lord
, “when I will make a
new covenant
with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
not like the covenant
which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which
they broke
,
although I was a husband to them,” declares the
Lord
. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the
Lord
, “I will put My
law within them
and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the
Lord
,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the
Lord
, “for
I will forgive their iniquity
, and their
sin I will remember no more
” (Jer. 31:31–34).

It is safe to say that millions of gallons of blood had been shed for the covering of sins during the eight centuries the Jews labored under the Mosaic covenant.

Lamb after lamb. Blood upon blood with no relief from their guilty conscience.

The prophet Jeremiah proclaimed the best news an observant Jew could ever hear: a new covenant is coming that will forgive your sins! That was beyond good news, that was magnificent news.

Then Silence

Jeremiah announced a new covenant was going to be cut by God Himself, but six centuries went by and no more news from God about this wonderful new covenant. In fact, there was complete silence after Malachi wrote the last book of the Old Testament in the late fifth century
b.c
. Not a single prophet appeared to bring any news to the Jews. Nothing. Where was God? When will this new covenant be cut?

John the Baptist

The words of John the Baptist broke centuries of prophetic silence when he pointed at Jesus and announced, “Behold the lamb of God, who
takes away the sin
of the world” (John 1:29).

Finally, a prophet proclaiming that the new covenant had arrived. Finally.

But how? How would this covenant be cut? What would be the promises of this new covenant?

Ten Steps to Cutting Covenant

Here are two biblical examples of a covenant-cutting ceremony.

Then Jonathan
made a covenant
with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan stripped himself of the
robe
that was on him and
gave it
to David, with his
armor
, including his
sword
and his
bow
and his
belt
(1 Sam. 18:3–4).

God Himself went through a covenant-cutting ceremony when He entered into covenant with Abraham.

So He [God] said to him [Abraham], “Bring Me a three year old
heifer
, and a three year old female
goat
, and a three year old
ram
, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
Then he brought all these to Him and
cut them in two
, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds.
The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.

Now when the sun was going down, a
deep sleep
fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him.
 . . .

It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a
smoking oven
and a
flaming torch
which
passed between
these pieces (Gen. 15:9–17).

Today a piece of paper is signed to enter into a contract; biblical covenants were elaborate procedures with dramatic symbolism. Here is some of the symbolism in the Abrahamic covenant.

> Animals were cut in two (Gen. 15:9–10).

> Abraham slept while God cut the covenant, signifying that God alone made this agreement (Gen. 15:12). The Abrahamic covenant is God’s forever promise to the Jews.

> The smoking oven and flaming torch symbolically represented God.

> The oven and torch alone passed between the sacrificed animals while God made an oath to provide a land, nation, and seed.

> The dead animals symbolized the consequences of breaking one’s covenant oath.

Please remember, a covenant is typically a two-way street; both partners have responsibilities in a covenant with one another. Jesus initiated the new covenant, brings us into the new covenant, keeps us in the new covenant, and helps us obey the new covenant. But we have to act in response to His covenantal work.

We are brought into the new covenant of grace entirely by the work of Jesus. We are kept in the new covenant entirely by Jesus. But we are given terms that we are to follow in response to all that He has done, which is everything.

In light of how ancient covenants were cut, let’s take a look at the new covenant. How exactly did Jesus cut this covenant for us?

Step #1: An Exchange of Robes or Outer Garments

Today, we have closets full of clothes; that was hardly the case in biblical times. When someone in the Old Testament would say, “I simply don’t have a thing to wear,” they probably meant it.

One’s robe was their garment. Of course, there were garments worn underneath the robe, but the robe was used so often the person was actually known by his robe. You would only have to see the back of someone’s robe to know who was wearing it. In essence, you were your robe and your robe was you. It was your identity.

Furthermore, the robe was not just an outer garment, it served as a blanket or pillow. The robe was precious to a person. The robe was the person.

In covenant, two become one. The exchange of robes was an outward sign of an inward commitment. By making this exchange, covenant partners were saying that they were receiving that person unto themselves. It was a total exchange of identity.

Did Jesus Take on Our Identity?

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself,
taking the form
of a bond-servant, and being
made in the likeness of men
. Being found in
appearance as a man
, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:5–8).

The King of Glory left His throne, humbled Himself and took on our actual form. God became flesh and became one of us.

The Greatest Miracle Ever

If you had to pick the greatest miracle of all time, which miracle would you choose?

1. The creation of the universe

2. The incarnation

3. The popularity of Honey Boo Boo

While the answer might seem obvious, the greatest miracle ever is not the success of Honey Boo Boo. The greatest miracle ever is not the creation of everything that exists. The greatest miracle of all time is the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

In the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the infinite God was stuffed into a finite body. The all-powerful, omni-present second member of the Trinity miraculously became man.

Muslims are wrongly taught that God was intimate with Mary. The Bible teaches that Mary, the sinner, was “overshadowed by the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:35). God supernaturally made Mary pregnant without conjugal relations. That is why Jesus is fully God and fully man. This is the hypostatic union of Jesus Christ, the God-man.

If Jesus had had two earthly parents, He would have been born a sinner. If Jesus had been born through a sexual union between God and a human, Jesus would have been born a sinner. Because Jesus is not of Adam’s seed, He was not born in sin and He did not inherit a sin nature.

Instead, God the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, and Jesus was miraculously conceived without sin. Roman Catholics like to teach that Mary was perfect and that she herself was immaculately conceived. This is wrong for many reasons.

1. It is not necessary. Because the Holy Spirit “overshadowed” her, Jesus did not inherit sinful DNA from an earthly father.

2. The Bible says that there is not a single human on the planet who was or is perfect. Only the God-man Jesus Christ has fulfilled that description.

3. Mary herself knew she was a sinner who needed saving when she called God her “Savior” (Luke 1:47).

Ontological Nature of Jesus Christ

Jesus is 100 percent God and 100 percent man. His two natures are neither mingled nor confused. Jesus was not a superman. Jesus was not a demi-god. Jesus was and is the unique, only begotten (one of a kind) Son of God (John 3:16).

Early Church councils debated the issue of Jesus’ ontological nature (how He is “put together”) in extreme detail. The Athanasian Creed was penned after years of intense debate over Christology (the study of Jesus). In the early Church, the debate was rarely about the divinity of Jesus; that was broadly accepted. The debate surrounded His human nature. How could the infinite God become finite flesh?

The early Church took painstaking effort to make sure their Christology was correct. They took these warnings seriously:

Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22).

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist (2 John 7)
.

Understanding Jesus rightly is so important that the authors of the Athanasian Creed labored long and hard to clarify Christology (theology about Jesus). Please note, if you don’t understand the nature of Jesus rightly, you don’t understand God rightly because Jesus Himself is God.

Athanasian Creed

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic [this is not the Roman Catholic Church, but a small
c
catholic which means “universal”] faith. Which faith
except everyone do keep
whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall
perish everlastingly
. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.

For there is
one
Person of the Father,
another
of the Son, and
another
of the Holy Spirit. But the godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
is all one
, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.