Tag: covenant


  • Living in the New Covenant

    In the last two posts, we’ve been discussing the heart of fallen man and the New Covenant as the solution. When we look at the promises of the New Covenant against the needs of fallen humanity, we see that God has given the believer everything he or she needs to live in Christ (2 Peter…

  • A Cure for the Incurable

    And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26) In the last post (An Incurable Diagnosis), we saw the condition of fallen humanity. It was a grim…

  • How Then Shall We Live? (Pt. 4)

    In our last post, continuing our discussion of how we are to live in light of the New Covenant, we said that we are to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in transforming us into Christ’s image. To do that, we are to walk according to the Spirit, not according to the Spirit. We then fleshed…

  • How Then Shall We Live? (Pt. 3)

    In our last post we talked a little about what it means to be holy and to grow in Christ. We said that holiness is a work of God with which we cooperate in His transforming us into the image of Christ (His image). It is primarily focused on the inner thoughts and attitudes, and…

  • How Then Shall We Live? (Pt. 2)

    The New Covenant is what God uses to change and transform us, making us holy as He is holy. We are changed into Christ’s image.

  • How Then Shall We Live?

    The promises of the New Covenant mean that there is no sin from which God cannot free us. Change and growth are possible for every believer in Christ.

  • Better Promises, Better Covenant

    But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. (Hebrews 8:6) So far in this series, we have seen that the New Covenant has a better High Priest (“Jesus, the Highest Priest“)…

  • Jesus, the Spotless Sacrifice

    But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means…

  • Jesus, the Highest Priest

    For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. (Hebrews 7:26) In our first post in this series (“A Better Word than Abel“), we talked about why a New Covenant was needed. Beginning with this post, we’re going to look…

  • A Better Word than Abel

    But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to…

  • Hope and a Future

    For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future…

  • Desiring to Do Good

    With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified…

  • Looking into the Mirror: The Root of Sin

    You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s (Exodus 20:17). If the first commandment God gave His people (“no other gods before Me”) set the tone for their relationship…

  • Looking into the Mirror: A True Witness

    You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (Exodus 20:16). When Peter and John were arrested by the Jewish leaders for preaching the resurrection of Christ, they defended themselves by saying, “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). In this simple statement we find the definition and duty…

  • Looking into the Mirror: Not Yours But His

    You shall not steal (Exodus 20:15). Years ago, a Colorado woman sent in two eight-cent stamps to make up for having used one stamp twice (which, for some reason, had not been canceled). A former IRS employee mailed in one dollar for four ballpoint pens she had never returned to the office. In February 1974,…

  • Looking into the Mirror: The Great Sin

    You shall not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14). Do not commit adultery. This command, like all the Commandments, seems so simple and straightforward. Yet, one look at the world around us–and even within the church–tells a different story. Like many of God’s commands, the church has often been guilty of treating only the symptoms without getting…