The Heart of the New Covenant

It is amazing that God entrusted to one man, the Apostle Paul, the explanation of the change from the Law of Moses to the new covenant of the Lord Jesus Christ. It appears that the actual nature and mechanism of the new covenant is difficult enough to be misunderstood to the present day.

The first five chapters of the Book of Romans include Paul's argument against the Jews. Paul's position is that the Divine grace given through the Lord Jesus has superseded the Law of Moses. The works of the Law of Moses no longer are God's way of righteousness. The works of the Law are not to be mixed with the new covenant.

Paul states again his position emphatically in a later chapter:

And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. (Romans 11:6)

Of course, by "works" Paul is not speaking of righteous behavior. This would contradict a great part of what he wrote in his letters to the churches. The term "works" is referring to the works of the Law of Moses, such as circumcision, the kosher regulations, and the feast days.

Paul realized his doctrine could be perverted to mean that righteous behavior no longer is required.

For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just. (Romans 3:7,8)

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? (Romans 6:1)

The relationship between Moses and Christ was difficult even for the original Apostles to understand. They quarreled among themselves concerning the role of the Law in the Christian redemption.

But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? (Galatians 2:14)

Paul stressed that we please God by faith in Christ whom God has sent, that God cannot be satisfied any longer by our observance of the Law of Moses.

Then Paul in his letter to the Galatians, as he does in the sixth chapter of Romans, pointed out that our adherence to Christ as the means of our righteousness, apart from obedience to Moses, does not indicate we now are free to sin.

But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. (Galatians 2:17)

Do we demonstrate our freedom from Moses and our pursuit of Christ by behaving sinfully? Is Christ the promoter of sin in His followers?

For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. (Galatians 2:18)

Galatians 2:18 makes the same statement as Romans 6:2:

God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

If, after having left Moses for Christ, we continue to live in the lusts of our animal personality, we break the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses has authority over our adamic personality. If we continue to live in our adamic personality we rebuild what had been destroyed and are found guilty of transgressing the Law of Moses.

James repeats this concept:

But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. (James 2:9)

When we choose to live in our adamic personality, rather than to enter the death and resurrection of Christ, we are under the condemnation of the Law of Moses whether or not we have been baptized in water and profess to be a Christian.

The Law of Moses serves as a slave that keeps us under control until we come to maturity in Christ and are judged by the law of liberty.

So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. (James 2:12)

The Law had brought Paul into death because of Paul's sinful nature. By choosing to enter the death of the righteous Jesus, Paul had died to the Law of Moses so that he would be legally free to live unto God through Christ.

For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. (Galatians 2:19)

Then Paul expresses the solution to the perplexing problem of the relationship of the Law of Moses to the new covenant, and the relationship of sinful behavior to the new covenant:

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Paul had abandoned Moses in order that his righteousness might proceed from faith in Christ alone-not the type of faith that is mere belief in doctrine but the faith that is a life lived in the Presence of the Lord, life guided and empowered by the righteous Nature of Christ. How can he be released from Moses? By being crucified with Christ.

How can Paul be released from sinful behavior? By living in Christ and Christ in him. The answer to Moses and to sin is entrance into Christ's crucifixion and entrance into Christ's resurrection.