The Second Pillar of the Law of the New Covenant
The second Commandment of the New Covenant is equally all God, and therefore equally impossible for man to do in his own strength…to love as Jesus loved. The only way this can come about is by Christ living through the individual. That is exactly what pure Christianity is all about…the Son of God living His life out in a many-membered body. It is not we who live, but Christ in us. Again, this eliminates the possibility of false religious pride coming in from laying down ones’ life for their neighbor. It is Christ in us who does the work.
As we carefully compare the two pillars of the Old Covenant with the New we must also acknowledge a great difference between the two: the Mosaic Law was between a people who did not want to hear God for themselves, they were afraid of Yahweh and selected Moses to be God’s spokesperson to them. It was clearly a covenant between man (Israel) and Yahweh. In this Covenant all those who agreed to it promised to do something in return for the blessings contained with the covenant. If Israel failed in these requirements, a variety of curses fell upon them, not only individually, but often corporately. The New Covenant, however, was based upon the law of faith. In order to look at this covenant carefully, we must look to the faith of Abraham.
The Abrahamic Covenant, A Promise of a New Covenant
I cannot go into complete detail regarding the methods of covenanting in the early Biblical period. This would require a lengthy book. I just want to point out that in the blood covenant made in Gen. 15:17,18, in which Yahweh participated, Abraham was asleep during its ratification process. The two parties of the covenant, as they walked between the pieces of animals were to say something to the effect, “If either of us break this covenant, may what happened to these animals, happen to the one who breaks the covenant. In other words, this kind of covenant was a lifelong covenant unto death. The life of each partner in the covenant was to be at the disposal of the other party should the need ever arise. It is vitally important to understand that the flesh man, Abram, was unable to meet his part of the requirement of this covenant. The covenant was between the “Seed” which would come forth from Abraham and Yahweh. That is why Abraham fell asleep during the ratification process. This covenant was a covenant between God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ in which Abraham and all his descendents would be blessed.
“It came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram…” (Gen. 15:17,18). The two fires represented God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Abraham fell asleep. This is the nature of us all. We are not capable of keeping covenants with God. When Jesus was about to spill His blood to inaugurate the New Covenant, He asked His disciples to pray with Him. What did they do? They fell asleep. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Paul, the apostle spends a great deal of time in his epistles trying to explain the difference between grace and law, promise and law, man’s efforts versus God’s power. In Galatians he compares the Abrahamic Covenant with the Mosaic covenant and calls them allegories. Read very slowly and prayerfully Galatians 4:21-31. See the difference between the promise of God and the efforts of man. I will list some comparisons between the two covenants which I hope will make clear the radical differences between the two. The words to the left of the / refer to the Old Covenant while the words to the right of the / refer to the New Covenant: Bondwoman/Freewoman; Hagar/Sarah; Ishmael/Isaac; Human effort/Sabbath rest; Sweat (dust)/No Sweat; Born of the flesh/Born of the Spirit; Son of the flesh/Son of promise; Not the heir/The heir, God’s chosen; From Mount Sinai/From Mount Zion; Earthly Jerusalem/Heavenly Jerusalem; Natural Jew/Spiritual Jew; Natural Israel/Spiritual Israel; Natural Land/Spiritual Land; Natural temple/Spiritual temple; From beneath/From above; In bondage/Free. (The above list was taken from The More Excellent Ministry by Kelley Varner.)
We see then, that the New Covenant was the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham” (Gal. 3:8,9).