The Worth of God’s Law in Jesus
“For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the Law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God ... by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.... But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant which was established on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second” (Hebrews 7:18-19, 22, 8:6-7, NKJV).
Our kind of biblical New Covenant theology is not “antinomian” (against the law), as many Roman Catholics, and those who stubbornly follow the 17th century invention of Covenant Theology (in the Westminster Confession of Faith or London Baptist Confession of Faith), and other churches like to accuse us of being “antinomian.” While it is true that some pretending “New Covenant” theologians are actually antinomian—because they preach a fake salvation, one that teaches about God accepting you “just as you are,” who say all anyone needs is a totally forensic justification, and that there is no need to obey any laws of God—we are not like those “New Covenant” theologians. We are biblical New Covenant theologians, grounded on God’s Word. We preach about Christ's power to sanctify our hearts, about Jesus working to fulfill literally all of God’s Law in us and through us, about Jesus’ Holy Spirit making us more loving and truly righteousness daily, so we may effectively serve Him.
A true New Covenant teaching elder proclaims a Gospel in which Jesus sanctifies in order to justify the salvation of a soul, since one must be made holy in order to draw near to God, before His face. In reality, most who accuse us of being are antinomian are antinomian themselves. Yes, they teach men to bind themselves to the Old Covenant moral laws, and say either that Christ will help their people obey the moral laws, but still leaves them to obey those laws themselves, through their own wills, minds and strength of the flesh. Yet God Himself declares that His Law cannot make anyone perfect, even while He commands all to become perfect as He is perfect. Therefore, if souls place their faith in themselves to obey God’s Law, they will invariably fail to obey it rightly, since their faith is not in Jesus Christ’s power to conform their spirits into His image. And every elect spirit in those churches senses this invariable, immutable, infallible truth, that they are not able to obey God’s Law, that God has counted all of them to be sinners. So each human god in each of those churches must distract and confuse the elect trapped in their churches, to keep them from turning to Jesus, to keep them in their trap and paying tithes to support them and their institutions. So each human god creates his or her own slightly varied interpretations of all God’s moral laws in his or her own mind of flesh, making each law of God into a watered-down version which the flesh can pretend to obey. But, in doing so, these human gods actually nullify God’s intended meanings of His laws. Furthermore, they totally nullify most ceremonial and symbolic laws of God, replacing them with rituals invented by pagans or by human gods of past churches. Thus, they nullify God’s intended purposes and meanings for those ceremonial and symbolic laws as well. This obscures and nullifies the genuine fulfillment of all God’s Law by Jesus Christ, in us and through us. They want all to forget that Jesus came to fulfill every “jot” and “tittle” of God’s Law. Jesus left absolutely nothing from God’s Law which He did not come to fulfill. Jesus certainly did not come to nullify a huge portion of God’s Law, to wipe out all ceremonial and symbolic laws. Consequently, are their doctrines not antinomian if they cause the people to effectively disobey God’s laws, if they nullify all of God’s Law with the teaching of men?
Those who trust in themselves to obey God’s Law through the flesh do not trust Jesus to make them love in truly just ways, with His own workmanship. They refuse to believe God’s New Covenant promises, through the faith of their spirits in His Holy Spirit. So they nullify the New Covenant and the fulfilled Law, which is taught by Jesus to all elect spirits, in order to preach their own thoroughly corrupt and adulterated interpretations of the Old Covenant moral laws, while nullifying most of the meaning and purposes of the Old Covenant symbolic laws as well. Yet God, through His Word, tells us that the old moral Law was not able to make men righteous in any way, unable to accomplish either their sanctification or justification, could not save us from our slavery to lies and habitual sins.
And justification always requires us to be made genuinely righteous too. Jesus justifies us (1) by first paying the just penalty for all the sins we have done and ever will do while we live in flesh on earth, when He sacrificed His flesh on that cross; (2) by risking His good name on His promise to write His Law upon our hearts and in our minds, on an unconditional covenant stating that He will personally and perfectly sanctify each and every one of us (which is to credit or impute His own righteousness to us, since He places our standing as soon-to-be-entirely-holy individuals under His own name, and makes it His personal responsibility), as a guarantee that we will eventually become worthy to be set free in heaven; and (3) by actually doing the work of conforming us into His image, causing each of our spirits to know, think and do all according to God’s will, so we will indeed be fit to enter heaven by the end of the judgment day. Thus, if anyone fully intends to go on sinning, to cling to their own ignorant, sinful thoughts of their flesh or their spirits, Jesus will not justify that one! A new righteous and sanctified spirit is required for justification. Therefore, not one can be justly freed from the condemnation of a justly granted guilty verdict, and separated unto God as His child, unless one’s full and complete sanctification is guaranteed to be accomplished, until it is certain that one will eventually think and behave in an invariably utterly holy way, always through just love that is like God’s just love. And the power and wisdom of Jesus alone can fully guarantee that God’s elect will be sanctified in this way. However, since the Catholics and Covenant Theologians do not believe in Christ's promise to fulfill His Law in us by His personal power, they are truly antinomian, without saving faith, opposing all Christ's New Covenant Law, and falsely accusing those trusting in Jesus.
We are not against the Law of God and do not nullify His Law in any way. If anything, we could be called ekpleronomians—those who fulfill or “fill out” God’s Law, by Jesus Christ’s power, through the works of His Holy Spirit inside us, as He labours upon our spirits to fulfill His New Covenant promise, as He writes the true and full meaning of His Old Covenant Law upon our hearts and in the minds of our spirits, so we may think and act like Him, and even do God’s just and loving works of genuine righteousness. And our definition of the word “law” also differs from their pagan definition. For we see that a “law” of God is not a Roman-like command, which we must do or else face an extreme and unjust penalty for “disobedience.” Rather, a “law” of God is defined, in both the Old and New Covenants, as a “tradition,” a teaching about a just and loving way of life that is pleasing to God. So we live by faith in Jesus our God. We trust Jesus to teach and train our spirits about those ways of life, so our spirits may become like His Spirit, be conformed into a more complete image of God, so we might be pleasing to God and enter our homes in heaven, where we will work beside our God, as His children and heirs. This is the true salvation from Christ, and our message about this is the true Gospel. It tells us to trust only in Jesus for our entire salvation. We have no faith in man, not in our ability to understand nor obey God’s Law, either His moral or ceremonial laws. None can “obey” God in an effective way that pleases God. Our only hope is upon the workmanship of God Himself, the power of Jesus’ Holy Spirit to do what we cannot do ourselves. We long to understand the wisdom of God's kind of truly righteous love, described in shadowy ways by the Old Covenant Law. And we yearn to be able to express every aspect of God’s Law, in the full ways taught by Jesus Christ—not by the letter of that Law, interpreted by our minds of flesh, but the wise application of all its principles written deeply in us by the hands of Jesus, overflowing in a desire to do God's will.
If we believe in Jesus, we trust Him to do what He, our God, promised in the New Covenant that He fully ratified with His blood, to provide the forgiveness of all our sins, with atonement to restore our relationship with our God, so our spirits may commune with our Creator’s Spirit. We trust Him to inwardly renew us, to cause our spirits to be “born again,” to make us “new creations” with “new hearts,” to conform us into His image, the likeness of God. We do not want to be merely forgiven, yet not freed from the bondage of lies, delusions and sins. We want much more, to become actively righteous and truly loving inside. For Jesus was not just sinless. Jesus did not simply keep Himself from disobeying God’s Law. Jesus did much more than that! Jesus served the Father, by serving us, the Father’s children. And Jesus served perfectly, always through just love, in ways that expressed and truly fulfilled all the good that God desired for His people. Jesus did not just keep the shadow of the Old Covenant Law. Jesus worked the gentle, beneficial, righteous, wise compassion of God with His hands, healing souls and doing many good works, fully pleasing His Father in heaven. He taught us only right words with His mouth, even God's whole truth, effectively driving away the worthless lies and delusions which bound and destroyed so many of God’s children, releasing them from vain and futile lives in sin. Jesus was fully, actively, perfectly righteous in all His words and deeds, did all through just love worked through His Spirit. Jesus exemplified God’s whole Law. He was the living Word of God. He was the animation of all the intentions of God for His Law, the perfect truth of life.
Now, because the Holy Spirit of Jesus is working upon our spirits, we begin to hate our carnal desires which pursue things of this world. Although our flesh always remains strong, the things of the flesh mean less to us each day, even become sad, destructive, unjust and vexing to our hearts. More importantly, we are gaining new desires in our spirits each day, knowledge of how life best functions, understanding of love and truth. The only real joy we derive inwardly is seeing life grow and bloom, watching truth flourish and express God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus causes our flesh to die with His body on the cross, trains our spirits to cast aside the lusts of the eyes, the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life in possessing things of the flesh. So, because of this, we do not trust our minds of flesh to interpret and obey the Law. And we certainly not to force God’s Law upon other souls, with threats and violence, since we know our own flesh is incapable of truly fulfilling His Law. Instead, we insist upon a mere minimum subset of the natural laws, with much mercy and much leeway for the ignorant or the weak, for those who know nothing of His Law. We only need laws pertaining to the last six of the archetypal Ten Commandments, a commonly accepted subset of those laws, just enough to preserve rights, freedoms and basic order, administered through balanced and lawful governments. For, to truly understand God’s Law, and do more than this bare minimum, our spirits need a Teacher better than any man, and a power greater than any human being possesses.
Real righteousness, the just and loving kind that fully pleases our Father in heaven, must be created in us by our Father, by our oldest Brother Jesus dwelling inside us, by His Holy Spirit seated on the throne in the chamber of our souls, next to our spirits. Jesus must teach and train us in righteousness until it overflows from our hearts, spontaneously. The whole of our salvation comes through Jesus, as He makes us into new creations who think and act righteously, who truly worship our Creator in our spirits. In Jesus, our spirits learn and become honest about His truth. God’s kind of righteous love cannot be worked by any human being through one’s own attempts to obey God’s Law, since everyone’s mind of flesh will naturally “take captive” the mind of one’s spirit. This is the default state of all human beings from birth, and this causes all to dishonestly and selfishly interpret God’s words. So all our spirits need the direct counsel of God, of the Creator Spirit. We all need God to teach, correct, admonish, rebuke, discipline, advise, guide and strengthen our spirits, so we can begin to conduct our lives with spirits having been made wise in Him, and no longer walk according to our flesh. One’s own efforts to obey God’s Law, without Jesus serving as the Lord of one’s spirit and life, are always ineffective. We can neither sanctify nor justify ourselves or anyone else. Literally all human souls interpret God’s Word according to their minds of flesh. Then only those with the most cunning and ruthless flesh will always overcome all others, become the chief false interpreters of God’s Law, or do away with God’s Law altogether. The most wicked, those with awake non-elect spirits serving Satan, will always rule all who walk only according to their minds of flesh. Our real justification, with genuine sanctification for that justification, must be obtained through Jesus, by His guarantee of absolute and complete sanctification into a state of pure righteousness. One’s own filthy righteousness is worthless. Salvation is only possible through Jesus’ power of His Holy Spirit, by our spirits placing all our faith in Jesus as our only authoritative Teacher, as the Lord of our whole lives.
We do not believe nor hope in ourselves. We have no faith in ourselves to obey the Law. Rather, our spirits turn our prayers and faith towards Jesus, our God. We beg Jesus to grant us more of His true, loving righteousness, for our salvation. And we often remain silent in our prayers, to hear Him in our hearts. We also carefully study His Word, all of it, both the Old and New Testaments. Then the minds of our spirits ask Jesus for a right understanding, turn our attention to Him, wait for His concepts of truth to enter our our hearts. In our prayers, our spirits tell our minds of flesh to submit to our spirits and remain quiet. And Jesus helps our spirits take control over our flesh. His mighty power glares at our flesh, makes our flesh fear and obey Him. And this communion of our spirits with our God is not something that takes place in the imaginations of our flesh, like we see in the false churches. For our spirits learn real truths from Jesus, truths that we could not know if we did not learn them from Him.
We do not invent religious truths in our own intellects of flesh. The flesh churns out only false and contradictory ideas, the kinds we see in fake churches. Our spirits hear the real Holy Spirit, for He is indeed as real as our spirits are real. It is evident that we do not invent our own truth, since our truth are the same as the truth of the apostles, the prophets, the patriarchs and all God’s elect from the very beginning. For the real truth can never change, because it is never contradicted by other real truths, nor is real truth ever ineffective. These truths we learn from Jesus are wise, always proving to be the most effective and beneficial principles and ways of all, both spiritually and physically. Clearly, our truths originate from God, who does not change. And our spirits do hear and understand Him. It is after our spirits hear our Creator God that our intellects of flesh begin to absorb and try to explain that information, through our faulty and figurative utterances and writings, by our mouths and hands of flesh. So our flesh may be wrong, but our spirits learn real truth, and trust in His power to make us truly righteous according to His real truth. Our spirits hope in His righteous love, now being worked in and through us. Jesus will accomplish all good, grant us a wise and free life, do the good works He appointed for us. We seek inner satisfaction in our labours, seek deep joy through His building of good relationships and treasures stored in heaven, His rich blessings for our hearts. In Jesus, we have hope to truly fulfill the Law. We do not hope in the Law itself, where we ourselves try to build peace and a good life by our own attempts to obey the Law. For we do not hope in ourselves, but in Jesus.
Jesus will come again, after He judges the sins of the earth during the end times, beginning with the start of the sixth seal’s era. And, when His feet touch the ground on the Mount of Olives, only His people will remain on the earth. For all the wicked will be taken away in death, not only the beast’s people, but every loveless soul left alive on the entire planet. Then we shall know what restoration is like in God. Then all things will be made natural and beautiful on earth, much like it was at creation. Children will play safely in our streets, without any threat of crime or war. Then wisdom will govern all men justly, because God’s Law will be fulfilled by Jesus, directly in many hearts, so we will fully desire what He desires, with power to do it willingly in joy. All will be made right, just as He wills.
But even now, if our spirits seek Jesus, then let Jesus do His works in our hearts and minds, if we trust in Him to teach His Law and wisdom to our spirits daily, He will manifest love in truth through our lives more each day, so we serve God in pleasing ways. If the faith of our spirits rests in Him, we shall see more of His kind of love, justice, beauty and peace in our lives and in our land. Wherever a people has faith in Jesus, there will be a greater ability of the faithful to see the spiritual and physical realities He created. There will be hope of righteous love, hope of a true and loving service for God and His people. His power will build a place of peace and joy, with freedom to think, decide and act according to our spirits’ renewed will in Him, since our renewed will shall desire the same things our God Himself desires. For God always upholds His will. If He wills His enemies to dwell in darkness and delusions for their destruction, or He wills His elect to find love in the truth, it will come to pass.
Do we not understand that Jesus came to die for our sins, so His Spirit could directly teach our spirits as His disciples, with His own mouth of His Spirit, and from the mouths of flesh granted to the souls of all His appointed elders among His disciples. Jesus did not simply come to bring us a new legal system worked by the hands of man-ordained men, through corrupted thoughts in their minds of flesh. Jesus came to work a miracle inside us all, new life created by His own power, inward rebirth. Jesus is our hope. We put our faith in Him to complete this work. This is why we live by the faith of our spirits in Him, not by a faith in human minds or the strength of flesh. A free and peaceful home of beauty, where God's children walk in pure joy, can only be granted by God's power, through His grace that fulfills the Law in us and through us. For no lawless land is free. Lawless lands certainly have no peace. Lawlessness causes men to live in dark prisons of the heart and mind, in tight chains of fear and dread about a coming judgment, both from other men and from God. Lawlessness hurts everyone, both the sinner and the victims of sin. So we do not proclaim a lawless life of man’s flesh failing to correctly and justly interpret and enforce a written law, not even God’s Law. We preach Jesus. Jesus will make us new and righteous creatures, even fit to work beside Him in heaven above.
Jesus’ Holy Spirit will fulfill God’s Law in us and through us, by our spirits’ faith and hope in His power, all according to His New Covenant promises. And that Law is entirely summarized by the archetypal Ten Commandments, where each commandment shows just what He will cause us to be:
Let our spirits conclude that the just must live by faith. The just let the flesh follow behind the lead of their spirits, as their spirits live in Christ’s sphere of influence, and ignore those who stubbornly live by their own works of flesh in their perversion of God’s Old Covenant moral Law. For all who attempt to obey God’s moral laws through their own thoughts and wills of flesh are never able to make themselves truly loving, just or righteous. Some churches tout man’s ability to obey God’s moral laws, and preach about a so-called “free will,” which is actually a blind slave’s will. For their “free will” is always manipulated by lies, delusions and deceptions taught by false teachers. Those souls are kept under the thumbs of human gods, who guard them with ignorance and superstition, by suppressing the truth. Then their human gods actually and blindly serve demon taskmasters, who also manipulate their so-called “free wills” through exactly the same methods. Calvinists who teach covenant theology are the same, in spite of their rhetoric. For they also trust in themselves to make themselves sanctified and, ultimately, justified. They work their own salvation. They too are blinded slaves, and do not rely on the works of Jesus Christ upon their spirits, but place themselves under the moral laws, striving to become their own workmanship. So they never become the workmanship of God. Therefore, we turn to Jesus. Our hope and faith rests in Jesus alone. He alone can fulfill God’s Law in us and through us, can fulfill His promise to personally write His whole Law on our hearts, so our spirits will serve Him through His love, wisdom and power. Our God Himself will do this, not us. Our faith rests in Him, in His ability. For God offers us no other kind of salvation in His Word.
We have heard many declare how this or that is what is wrong with the church, or we should do this or that to revive the church. When souls in false churches become too emotionally burnt out or too choked by the cares of the flesh, churches seek better motivational speakers and music to stir up their emotions even more. But this sets them up for an even bigger emotional breakdown. So they require even more skilful manipulations of their minds of flesh by physical means. In all this, no one teaches anyone to turn the attention and focus of their spirits to Jesus, to seek Jesus for His truth, to ask Him for inner peace, to even beg Him for faith, so they can trust Him to work all ultimate outcomes. So none can find joy in their daily labours, no satisfaction in lovingly serving others. None can rejoice in the created truths of God, because they turn all away from them, into conspira