Since eating from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, man has been constantly trying to get back into the place of glory he had then. He has built many towers, created all kinds of offerings, organized various religions and sects which promised to bring us back to the rest man once had when in talking relationship with his Creator. Man has beaten off the birds of the air, has cut much flesh asunder in the name of his religion (Christianity not excluded). Yet we will never be able to enter our true rest with these kinds of offerings. The religious works of man all speak of utter futility and meaninglessness.
While man is in his pride, he is certainly incapable of seeing his nakedness—incapable of seeing the worthlessness of his works, of his offerings unto his Creator.
The New Covenant puts an absolute end to man’s works. His pride is brought to nothingness. Israel was required to do much to maintain the blessings of its covenant through Moses. Israel failed on all accounts. That is why God established this Mosaic covenant with Israel—to show mankind that no people can make a covenant with God and keep it.
And yet religious man still attempts to do the impossible. Christians, the people who were to lead the world away from such activity, have fallen away from the teachings of the New Covenant and returned back to chasing away birds and cutting up flesh. We boast in our religious works of the flesh and parade them around just like the Baal prophets did on Mount Carmel in front of Elijah’s altar. We have fallen asleep like Abraham did. We need to awake from its stupor, cease from our carnal labor, enter into our rest and bring peace to the world. But we must first return to our first love. We must again come to know our redeemer intimately, personally. We must cease our idolatry and adultery with types and shadows, with useless rituals, laws, ordinances, creeds, articles of faith, denominational confessions, etc. We must cease from works of unrighteousness!!
Due to the false concepts of salvation perpetuated in Christianity, we have forgotten why God called us in the first place. Israel was to be a nation of priests to the world on behalf of Yahweh. They were to make intercession for them and offer sacrifices on their behalf. Most Christians believe salvation is simply a deliverance from being eternally tortured. This reveals how far Christianity has fallen from its purposes in Christ Jesus. We have forgotten that we have been called to be a Royal Priesthood, a holy nation and ambassadors of Christ. When? On the other side of the grave? No! No!! Oh, Christian we need to wake up and enter into Christ’s work prepared for each of us. To do this we must cease from working up a bunch of religious sweat by working on our favorite denomination’s programs. Ask Him for your daily work and your daily bread.
Do you know what the work of a Christian consists of? Before you continue this article to see my answer, please stop right here, close your eyes, and try to describe the work of a Christian. Most Christians will be as wrong with their answers as they were with first part of this article. Here is what the Bible tells us is the work of a Christian:
“Then they said to him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” (John 6:29)
Of course, Christians do not really believe it is this simple. That is why they have added thousands of other works which have served no other purpose but to puff up our pride so high that we have completely forgotten what the true work is. The work of God totally destroys the pride of man. It brings man and his efforts to nothing. There is something in all of us which insists we, in some way, earn our way. Oh yes, we love to sing about how we “cling to the Old Rugged Cross,” but our words and our spirit give us away. We love to sing about how we “decided” to follow Jesus, and tell our fellow brothers and sisters about all that we have left behind so that one day we can rule and reign with Him. We do not see the subtle “works” mentality behind our words.
In some circles of Christianity the word “overcomer” is a very popular one. Those who will reign with Christ are those who overcome the lusts and temptations which beset us. They are pressing into the kingdom while others, less loyal to the King, are indulging in the flesh. Many of these “overcomers” have been overcome with religious pride and do not even know it. It saddens me to know that this article will not steer most in these camps from their courses, or should I say their intercourse with death.
A person who thinks he can offer something up to God in exchange for some glory will usually not be persuaded otherwise by the words of another brother or sister. An article like this will probably not knock the wind out of their sail. The wind will have to come from God in the form of a storm which will carry them where they would otherwise not go in their own strength.
Those who seek to find things to do to earn their place in the kingdom have over 700,000 thousand words in the Bible which can be pieced together to create a system of works with which to justify their Babylonian tower. Most usually go into the Old Covenant, dig up a past word of God, Christianize it, and declare it the Word of God for today just like Israel did with the snake on the pole.
Would you like to be an overcomer? Would you like to overcome the darkness of this world? Would you like to gain victory over the lusts of the eyes, lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life? The Bible tells us the definition of an overcomer. Now I must warn you. This definition is God’s definition. It does not come from the creeds, articles of faith, confessions, membership statements, etc. of various sects of Christendom. Here is God’s definition of an “overcomer:”
“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” (1 John 5:3-5)
As we can see, here is another Scripture to destroy our religious pride, this is if one realizes “their” faith is actually Jesus’ faith. Of course, even this Scripture will not bring down all that dark religious reasoning in those who have gone down the road of “I have decided to follow Jesus.” Only a rude awakening like Saul had on the road to Damascus will really deal with the matter. Saul was absolutely convinced he was doing the work of God until he met the Work of God! Saul needed new eyes before he could become Paul (meaning small), the apostle to the nations.
Much of the difficulty we (Christians) have had with our spiritual walks stems from the fact that we have not been able to sort out the Bible, that is, we have not “rightly divided” the Bible. For example, most Bibles contain two pages which should not be in any Bible. Almost all Christian Bibles contain two titles pages, one introducing what the publishers of these Bibles entitle “The Old Covenant or Testament” and another page introducing what they call “The New Covenant or Testament. This is quite misleading, actually false. There is not a Scripture in the entire Bible authorizing anyone to call Genesis to Malachi “The Old Covenant.” Nor are there instructions which tell modern Bible publishers to entitle Matthew to Revelation “The New Covenant.” This is merely a Bible publishing tradition which does not add to an understanding of the Bible, but actually hinders it. The New Covenant must not be understood as a set of gospels and letters from the apostles. If a typical pastor of an average church would say, “Let us turn to the New Testament,” I feel certain probably all the congregation would be heading towards that last one quarter of the Bible. This reveals how deep our conditioning has been.
The letters and gospels of what is commonly called the New Testament were written during an intermittal period of time during which the physical nation and people of Israel were being weaned from the Mosaic Covenant and being introduced to the New Covenant of the Law of the Life in Christ Jesus. When we read of the events in their lives, including the instructions they received from the apostles and others, we must remember that while Paul was preaching “grace through faith,” the other apostles had not yet completely understood what was happening. There was a great mixture during this period (which unfortunately still exists today). We forget that the Temple had been recently restored. The Levitical Priesthood with all its rituals was still functioning during while the writings which we incorrectly call the New Testament were written. The apostles to the circumcision were still zealous for the Law of Moses and commanded Jews to continue to keep it! (Acts 21:20). While believing that Jesus was the Messiah and while the Temple was still standing, Jewish Christians, including the apostles, were still offering sacrifices at the Temple! (Acts 21:23,24).
We must understand that Jesus was born under the Mosaic Law and that He had to live a life which perfectly fulfilled it. We do ourselves and others a great harm if we try to pattern our own lives after His life in the flesh. He was called to do what no man on earth could possibly do, perfectly fulfill the Law of Moses. That is why you do not find Jesus speaking against the Law of Moses, or the ten commandments, yet Paul spoke many things against those who sought to keep believers under the Mosaic Law. Paul was commissioned the “Apostle of the Uncircumcision.” His Gospel was one of pure grace. He wrote most of his letters 20 to 30 years after Jesus’ ascension. He was shown by the Holy Spirit that the whole Mosaic structure, Israel, Jerusalem, the Temple, the Levitical Priesthood, the whole Mosaic Law would soon be rolled away like a scroll. Jesus prophesied this would take place within the generation to whom He preached. The destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 perfectly fulfilled Jesus’ words.
To prevent future believers from trying to “copy” Jesus’ life in the flesh, Paul wrote,
“Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer.” (2 Cor. 5:16)
Our pattern is not Jesus Christ in the flesh; our pattern is the life He prepared for us individually in Him in the spirit. I have seen many young Christian zealots (I was one of them) get burned out trying to copy the Jesus they saw recorded in the gospels. Our pattern is not in the gospels. Our pattern is in Him according to the Spirit. Oh, I pray you can hear this!
So then, to truly understand what the kingdom of God is all about, what the New Covenant entails, we must cast off some very heavy chains of Christian traditions which have held us captive to earthly shadows, types, and deceptions. This article serves only as an introduction to the subject of casting off the robes of traditions which hold back the glory our Lord and Savior wants to display to the world through His people. (Other writings and audio tapes will deal with the various other counterfeits we have swallowed as substitutes for the life found in the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.)