God's Servant Establishes the Law of God
I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles [nations]; (Isaiah 42:6)
The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable. (Isaiah 42:21)
God's law is His revelation concerning what He considers to be good or evil, pure or impure, clean or unclean, righteous or unrighteous, holy or unholy, acceptable to Him or unacceptable to Him. Without God's law we have no knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong, what brings life and what brings death. We are as Adam and Eve, as little children, not being able to distinguish between good and evil.
The conscience of people guided them until the Law, the light of God shone from Sinai.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been introduced to Yahweh , the Lord of Israel. But to them was given no law other than personal directives from the Lord, personal revelations of the will of God for themselves. The remainder of mankind had only conscience and the world of nature to instruct them concerning righteousness.
All of that was changed the moment God wrote the Ten Commandments on the two tables of stone. What a giving of light that was! First to the Jews, and then to those who came in contact with the Jews, was revealed the Nature and will of God.
But, as Paul informs us in Romans 7:10, the Ten Commandments brought death to us instead of eternal life because our fleshly nature is opposed to the law of God. A law that brings conflict and death does not strengthen the bruised reed or stir into flame the feeble light that people have.
God is determined to save people, not to destroy them. The Law of Moses makes sin exceedingly sinful, bringing death instead of life. Death is not God's will for mankind. But the Law of Moses does serve us by bringing us to Christ for salvation.
The fullness of the eternal moral law of God, the light of God, shone in Christ. Christ is the Word, the Covenant, the Law magnified and made honorable. Christ is the eternal law of God Personified. Jesus not only gives us the law, He Himself is the Law of God. Christ is the new Covenant. He is eternal Life. He is the Pleasure of God. He is the Light of God, the perfect revelation of that which is good, right, life-giving, clean, pure, righteous, holy.
The new covenant is the writing of the law of God in the human heart and mind, not the Law of Moses but the eternal moral law. Since Christ is the eternal moral Law of God, the new covenant is the forming of Christ in the heart and in the mind of the members of the Body of Christ. When Christ comes to maturity in us we shall act, speak, and think according to the eternal moral law of God. Thus we ourselves become the new covenant the Lord has made with mankind.
The Servant of the Lord is the new Covenant. The Servant of the Lord magnifies and makes honorable the law of God by personifying the law and by bringing the power and wisdom that enable all men to serve God acceptably. On many occasions mankind behaves as though the law of God is not honorable; as though the law of God is an antiquated moral standard repugnant to decent people.
There is, popularly, a reproach connected with the law of God, the ways of God. There is a dishonor associated in the minds of people with God, His law and His Christ. But the Presence of Christ changes that point of view and makes the law of God honorable among men.
It is necessary for Christ to destroy the works of the devil in order to create righteousness in mankind. It is necessary also for Him to impart to people His Divine Nature and the power of eternal, incorruptible resurrection life and glory if they are to become pleasing to God.
The holy city, the new Jerusalem, is the highest expression of God's law. The new Jerusalem, the Bride of the Lamb, is the law of God in glorified form. The holy city is the light of the world, the means through which all the nations can learn to conduct themselves in the manner accepted of God Almighty. The new Jerusalem is the light of the world because it is filled with Christ.
Christ is the new Covenant, the Law of God personified and made great and glorious in the eyes of the peoples of the earth. The Body of Christ also is the new covenant, the law of God personified and made great and glorious in the eyes of the peoples of the earth. The Head and the Body are to be One (John 17:21-23).
Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in the world. (I John 4:17)
"As he is, so are we in the world"! Think of it!
The concept of the Church, the Israel of God, the Body of Christ, being the personification and glorification of the law of God, being the light of the world through the good works it performs, has suffered a serious setback in the days in which we are living.
In the first place, a misunderstanding of the teaching of the Apostle Paul concerning salvation by imputed (ascribed) righteousness has caused Christian teachers to take the position that God is not especially interested in the conduct of His people.
A spirit that is not of God, not of the Scriptures, has entered the minds of the Christians. This spirit has brought about a concept of the Christian redemption as being a special gift of God to bring Gentiles to Heaven on the basis of their doctrinal faith. It is obvious that such a concept wipes out any possibility of the Christian Church being the personification of the law of God. The current doctrine that the Christian redemption is an undemanding gift or plan to "bring people to Heaven" is not found in the Scriptures.
The Christian salvation is the development of a standard of righteous personality and behavior in the members of the Body of Christ, a radiant righteousness and holiness that will make the law of God great and glorious in the eyes of the nations of the earth. This is the scriptural concept of salvation.
The Scriptures are not a description of a struggle between belief and unbelief in doctrine, at least not in the sense in which we employ those terms today. The Scriptures are a description of the struggle between sin and righteousness, between good and evil, between obedience to God and disobedience to God.
In the Scriptures, true faith is synonymous with obedience and unbelief is synonymous with disobedience. Currently the terms belief and unbelief are used to describe our acceptance or rejection of the truth of certain theological facts.
The demons know the facts of the spirit realm and of the Divine plan of redemption. It is not our assent to these facts that brings salvation, it is our obedience to God.
How many believers are trusting in their adherence to theological facts to carry them into blessedness when they die? They are in error. Their "belief" will not bring them into Paradise after death any more than it has saved them from the bondages of sin before their death.
The rise and fall of Israel as a nation was not related to its belief in the Law or lack of it, except as faith is defined to mean obedience and righteousness. Theological faith was not at issue. The Ten Commandments have to do with deeds of righteousness, not with an assertion of the truth of the Torah. The Pharisees stumbled over this very point.
The same is true today. Revival power has left the Christian churches, not because of a lack of belief in the virgin birth or the Divinity of Christ but because of the prevailing sin and disobedience to God. The need today is for repentance, not for an abstract belief that there is a God, or for "faith" to get out of God what we want. Seeking the power of God apart from the will of God creates the False Prophet who is to come.
God is interested in bringing forth righteousness and praise in the sight of the nations of the earth.
God does hear the prayers of His saints concerning their personal and family needs. God is helping us along the path that leads to the fullness of the stature of Christ. One day we will be in the image of Christ and the result will be glory and a light by which the nations of the earth can see God.
Christ is the Word of God made flesh. We, the members of the Body of Christ, are the flesh being made the Word of God.
Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. (II Corinthians 3:3)
The old covenant can be written on stone, paper, wood, parchment, or on any other writing material. However, the new covenant cannot be written on any of these materials. The new covenant can be written only on the human mind and heart.
The old covenant can be written with ink. The new covenant can be written only with the Spirit of God.
God wrote sovereignly on the tables of stone and Israel was commanded to obey what was written. In the new covenant, God writes sovereignly on the human mind and heart. The Christian obeys because the Word is written in him and is part of him and he of it.
The Christian himself is the covenant; he is the testimony; he is the witness of God concerning Himself; he is the law of God just as the Ten Commandments were the testimony, the witness of God concerning Himself.
The Word of God re-creates us so that Christ - the new Covenant of God with man - is living in us (Galatians 2:20).
We cannot transform ourselves into the Word of God; only the Glory of God can do that.
Speaking of the working out of the new covenant in us, Paul states:
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (II Corinthians 3:18)
The transformation of the saints into the Word of God was prophesied in the Old Testament:
For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: (Isaiah 28:10)
And that is just the way it happens to us.
As we press forward in our Christian pilgrimage we continually are being brought down into death to our old nature so the Life of Christ may take its place. We die so He may live in us. We must decrease in order that He may increase.
Command upon command, rule upon rule, the Word of God, the new covenant, is written in us by the finger of God. We are becoming the Word of God, the law of God, the new covenant.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: (Hebrews 8:10)
We who are Christians are the epistles of the apostles and teachers who are sent by the Holy Spirit to minister to us (II Corinthians 3:2). We are written in their hearts, the ever-increasing righteousness and holiness of our conduct being the proof that they indeed have been sent by the Lord. We are their credentials.
We are the light of the world, meaning that the Person, will, and ways of the Lord are being revealed through our deeds, our words, and our motives. It is God's intention that the peoples of the earth learn to distinguish between right and wrong, between what is pleasing to God and what is not pleasing to God, by means of the image of God presented through Christ through the Church, which is His Body.
Christ - Head and Body - always fulfills the eternal moral law of God. The Servant of the Lord makes the law workable and practical for people by delivering them from Satan, by setting an example for them, by teaching them the laws of the Kingdom of God, and by empowering them to practice what they have been taught.
Teaching not accompanied by the power of deliverance and performance brings people to the knowledge of God's will but does not enable them to put into practice what they have learned.
Deliverance without teaching sets people free from spiritual bondage but does not point out to them the necessity for righteous, holy, and obedient conduct - the conduct that can be accomplished only through the grace given to us through Christ.
If demons come to a house that has been swept and decorated but has not been filled with the Glory of the Lord, they will enter again into that house and the end of the delivered one will be worse than if he never had been delivered in the first place (Matthew 12:43-45).
The Kingdom of God is not in word but in power. The power of God sets the captive free. Then the Word of God is written by the Holy Spirit on the mind and heart of the convert until he becomes the Word of God, the new covenant, the light of the world.
The power and wisdom necessary to create us in the full stature of Christ can come only from the creative Word of God. There must be faithfulness, patience, conscientiousness, and diligence on the part of the believer so the Holy Spirit can perform the work of transformation into the image of Christ.
The blood of the Lamb provides the legal basis on which the work of transformation can proceed.
If we have not been faithful, patient, conscientious, and diligent the Lord will make us so if we will ask Him. But if we are double-minded, lazy, indifferent concerning the things of redemption, choosing rather to walk after the lusts of the flesh and fleshly mind, then we will reap corruption rather than eternal life in the Day of the Lord.
The Body of Christ causes God's will to be done in earth as it is in Heaven by casting out devils, healing the sick, pointing to the Redeemer on the cross, witnessing of Christ's resurrection, and by teaching the ways of righteousness, holiness, and obedience to all men in preparation for the return of the King and His Kingdom.
We work at these tasks today, and so much the more as we see the Day of the Lord approaching. When He comes our ministry will be increased a thousandfold until the entire earth is filled with the knowledge of the Glory of God as the waters cover the sea.
The fullness of the new covenant will be in effect when "they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest" (Hebrews 8:11). This covenant is made with God's elect, with the house of Israel. Such fullness has not been attained as yet. All the members of Christ do not know the Lord to this extent. We still have need that we minister one to the other.
But when that which is perfect has come, that is to say, when Christ comes to us in the fullness of the spiritual fulfillment of the Old Testament feast of Tabernacles, then we shall know the Lord fully and clearly just as we now are known by the Lord fully and clearly.
The fullness of the knowledge of the Lord then will be ours. No longer will it be necessary for us to teach each other, for every member of the Body of Christ will be in possession of the knowledge of the Glory of the Lord.
It appears likely that much progress toward the maturing of the new covenant will take place during the thousand-year Kingdom Age known as the Millennium. The Kingdom Age is the time when righteousness and praise will spring forth before all the nations as they never have during the Church Age (Isaiah 61:11).
From the time of Abraham, God has been pointing toward and working toward the Day when His Servant will bring justice and truth to the peoples of the earth. The followers of Christ are being prepared as kings and priests so that justice, truth, righteousness, and the knowledge and joy of the Lord may be established among the nations.
Let us take heart. Let us lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees. The Lord is coming and He is bringing the reward for our patient endurance and faithful service. Our blessings and responsibilities will be marvelous in that Day. Our fruitfulness and dominion in Christ will fill the heavens and the earth.
O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth. Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: he shall judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice Before the Lord: for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth. (Psalms 96:9-13)
Only a few more steps, a bit more faith and trust in God, some final lessons, and then we will be ready for the appearing of Christ and our appearing with Him, bringing truth and righteousness to the nations of the earth.
Meanwhile let us do all the good we can, ministering to the saints, bearing a true witness of God to the world, being adults in spiritual understanding and children in malice.
The role of Christ, Head and Body, is to "magnify the law and make it honorable." This means we are to enlarge God's Person and ways and make them approachable and wonderful for all peoples, young and old, through the direction and enabling power of the Holy Spirit.
When the Church of Christ has attained the Divine standard of perfection, which is the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, being ready to descend from the new heaven to find eternal rest on the new earth, then the testimony, the law of God, will have been established forever.
The Presence of the holy city, the new Jerusalem, the Wife of the Lamb, will shed forth the light, the eternal law God to the entire universe. The highly-ornamented foundations of the wall of the city signify that no form of sin, uncleanness, or rebellion ever again will defile the Divine creation. The jewels in the foundations are the marks of character of those who have overcome sin and rebellion through Christ.
The holy city is the supreme development of the Servant of the Lord, the fullest expression of His role of bringing the law of God to the nations of the earth.
The Servant Himself is the testimony, the covenant, the witness of who God is and of what is pleasing to Him.