New Covenant Ways – BT14:  New Covenant brings a completely-different-in-kind WAY to receive

 

 

Please follow the BLOG Etiquette to stay on topic and pass the moderator’s check.  Bold, underlined text below = future links to the BLOG pages.

 

Jesus was “The Way” to the Father (a) for “through Him we have obtained access by trusting-relying-faith into this unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace” (b) “in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our trusting-relying-faith in Him (c).  This is true because through Christ, now we “have access to the Father by the means of one Spirit” (d).  Since Jesus is seated in heaven, now the only Way we can thus meet face-to-face with the Father is by the dunamis enabling-power of the Holy Spirit, who is the Lord.  This is exactly why Paul is baffled in 2 Corinthians 3:7-18 that Jewish-Christians think that reading Moses (e) is “the way” to be transformed by God’s glory.  Wrong!  <Notes> a) John 14:6, b) Romans 5:2, c) Ephesians 3:12, d) Ephesians 2:18, e) the 5 books of Moses is the Law or old covenant that is the basis of 97.4% of the OT – see Logos Word of God – BT5a.

 

The Holy Spirit is “the completely-different-in-kind New Way,” just as Paul says in Romans 7:6, “Now that we are released-freed-from (a) the Law, having died to that which held us captive, we NOW ongoingly serve (b) by the means of the completely-different-in-kind New Way (c) of the Spirit, and/coupled absolutely in fact no longer by the means of the palaios ‘old, antiquated, worn-out, weak, worthless’ way of the gramma writing.”  Sure seems like a lot of Christians are doing the opposite! <Notes> a) katargeo: ‘thrown down to be inactive and useless,’ terminated, destroyed, voided, annulled, and thus released from – also used of the Law in Ephesians 2:15, b) minister, obey, etc., c) kainotes from kainos: walking in newness of zoe genuine-life – Romans 6:4.

 

“The narrow/strait gate” or “door” (a) and “the way/road that is routinely compressed/contracted/troubling-difficult that leads to zoe genuine-life” that “few find” that Jesus speaks about (b) is absolutely not about keeping the 613 commandments of the Law.  Jesus is the “door of the sheep” and only “if anyone enter by Me will he be saved and be able to go in and out and find pasture/rest” (c). Likewise, Jesus said “I am the Way, The Truth, the zoe genuine-life . . . absolutely no one comes to the Father except through Me” (d). <Notes> a) Luke 13:24, b) Matthew 7:13-14, c) John 10:7-9, d) John 14:6.

 

Hebrews 10:1, 19-22 says:  “For since the Law has but a shadow (a) of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never . . . make perfect those who routinely draw near (b). . . but now we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the completely-different-in-kind New (c) and/coupled Living Way that He (Christ) opened-up for us through the [separating] curtain (d), that is, through His flesh.”  It seems a lot of Christians want to go back to the Jews’ old ways. <Notes> a) skia: shade cast backward from an object, cf. Hebrews 8:5, Colossians 2:8, b) proserchomai is a Hebraism for approaching God for worship, but closely akin to proseuchomai conversational-praying, c) chadash, kainos: fresh, completely-different-in-kind, unprecedented, sharing nothing with its predecessors, unique, and superior, d) into the Holy of Holies, the presence of God.

 

Is it any wonder that early followers of Christ called themselves “The Way” (a), for the term “Christian” was originally a derogatory term used by the Romans who hated the Christians. The early “followers of the Way” were the ones who “proclaimed the Way of salvation” (b), “the Way of the Lord, the Way of God” (c), “the Way of The Truth” (d), and “the Way of the Righteousness” (e).  It’s too bad that this term didn’t ‘stick’ for followers of Christ, The Way. <Notes> a) Acts 9:2, 19:9, 23, 22:4, 24:14, 22, b) Acts 16:17, c) Acts 18:25-26, d) 2 Peter 2:2, e) 2 Peter 2:21.

 

Reflection:

 

 

As Christian musicians, don’t we want to be pointing people down the road or way of Jesus Christ who is The Way, The Truth, and The Life?  Why are we having them read 97.4% of the OT that is about Moses and His Law, that was ONLY written to safeguard the Jews UNTIL Christ came.  The other 2.6% are prophetically true now in Jesus and what He is doing by the means of the Holy Spirit.  Most of the early Church abandoned the entire OT after 70 AD, especially because they rightfully saw it completely fulfilled and mostly Gentile Church had no needed of something that had fulfilled its purpose – to start the Church!  Why are we going back to “the palaios ‘old, antiquated, worn-out, weak, worthless’ way of the gramma writing” when we have “the completely-different-in-kind New Way of the Spirit, which we NOW are to ongoingly serve God?”  We have a completely-different-in-kind Way to approach God than the Jews had – shouldn’t we stick to it?

 

Prayer:

 

 

Lord, let us never swerve from the Road or Way that you have NOW put us on through Christ and His Holy Spirit.  Let us never go back to gramma writings when we NOW can learn from You directly just as you promised in Jeremiah 31:34 and so many other verses!

 

 

 

 

 

Spiritual Education, Jesus is the narrow Way to the Father by bold faith into Grace, boldness & confidence before God, The Holy Spirit gives us access to God, Jesus is the door or gate to God, The Law is a shadow but Christ the reality, The Law can’t make anybody perfect, Jesus and His Spirit are the Living Way into God’s presence, Followers of the Way not Christians a derogatory term by Rome