All Things New Series Archives

All Things New: The Future

The first month of this new year is winding down. How are things going on your fresh start? As believers, we have already experienced the freshest start possible. Our sins have been wiped away completely, and we are a new creation. Paul says as much in 2 Corinthians 5:17. We have a new birth, new life, new position, new nature, new goals, new relationships, a new mission, a new purpose … and many more. But the key to all of this, we learned was God’s divine initiative. We also learned He manifested that initiative through covenants. In Jesus’s last night with His disciples, He issued a new charge that would forever mark them — and us — as His followers. But we have one more new thing to consider. We have a new future. We learn about that from Peter.

The Day of the Lord

The prophets, beginning with Isaiah, wrote about the Day of the Lord. A quick sampling of those mentions includes things like vengeance, anger and destruction. It is the day when God pours out His well-deserved wrath on humanity and His creation that have been in rebellion against Him since the Garden of Eden. He has been patient, merciful, and gracious. God is also holy, righteous, and just. In history, we’ve seen glimpses of His judgment — against Egypt, Babylon, Jerusalem, Rome.

And it’s not just the Old Testament prophets who told of the Day of the Lord. Consider Peter’s words:

But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. …
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
2 Peter 3:7,10

All the works done will be exposed. All the works. The Day of the Lord is not just a judgment of nations or cultures or even cities. It is a judgment of individuals. And it is a judgment that we would have had to face if not for Jesus.

Saved

When we say we have been saved from our sins, what exactly does that entail? For starters, we have been saved from our inclination to sin because we’ve been given a new nature, a new heart, new desires. But it’s more than that. We have been saved from the effects of sin. This is a little different from the consequences. The consequences often linger. I wrote a book a while back about a man who cheated on his wife. The consequences in the form of trust issues lingered for years in the story. But the effects, the separation from God has been healed. Christ has reconciled us back to the Father. Joy and peace replace despair and hopelessness.

Peter says we were redeemed from our “futile way of life inherited from your forefathers.” (1 Peter 1:18)

That futile way of life put us under from the wrath of God. In 2 Peter 3:5, Peter cites Paul and the doctrines he wrote about. This is one of the key verses. Paul said in Romans 5:9 “having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” Because we have been judicially declared righteous (justified) we shall be saved from having to face God’s wrath against sin and sinners. We have a new future.

The New Future

But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
2 Peter 3:13

John goes into more detail about the new heaven and new earth, and even the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21-22, but Peter gives us enough.

It is a promise.
Creation is remade.
Righteousness dwells there and sin does not.

And we should be anxiously awaiting the realization of that promise, of that new future. Not only that, knowing that awaits us should motivate us to holy living. “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless.” 2 Peter 3:14

And if your holy living needs a little work, or if you have never experienced new life, today is a great day for a fresh start!

All Things New: The Charge

By Paula Wiseman Leave a Comment

As a new year begins, our thoughts naturally tend toward making a fresh start. As believers, we have already experienced the freshest start possible. Our sins have been wiped away completely, and we are a new creation. Paul says as much in 2 Corinthians 5:17. We have a new birth, new life, new position, new nature, new goals, new relationships, a new mission, a new purpose … and many more. But the key to all of this, we learned was God’s divine initiative. We also learned He manifested that initiative through covenants. In Jesus’s last night with His disciples, He issued a new charge that would forever mark them — and us — as His followers. We learn about it from the Apostle John.

The Charge to Love

That night in the Upper Room, before announcing He was leaving, or that He would be betrayed, even before the supper itself, Jesus gave His followers a new commandment.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35

The command to love wasn’t necessarily new. In Leviticus, God had instructed His people to love their neighbors and strangers as themselves (Lev. 19:18, 34). This charge is new for two key reasons.

“As I have loved you.”

Jesus commanded to love as He loved. That means we love sacrificially. Jesus made God’s love real and tangible. We are to do the same. People need to understand God loves them through the things we do, the ways we serve. It is a love not bound to emotions, but by commitment. It is the 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love. It is costly because it is deep and loyal but it is our highest calling.

“By this all men will know”

Loving like Christ loves is distinctive. In fact, it is THE distinctive of the new community of believers. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, Jesus lays out the principles this new community would operate under.

The Motivation for Love

In Exodus 20, God began the Ten Commandments with the statement, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (Exodus 20:2). Because of who God is and what He has done, He has a right to call for our obedience.

John expands on that, though, in his first epistle.

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4:10-11

That rescue from slavery was a prelude to the ultimate rescue – saving us from our sins. God did that out of His great love for us. Our proper response to His action (to His initiative) is love. We demonstrate our love for God by our love for one another.

The Charge Fulfilled

A principal established in the Old Testament is that obedience brings blessings, not in quid pro quo kind of way, but it is undeniable that living God’s way is best for us. John writes quite a bit about love, both God’s love for us and our charge to love others. If you read the Gospel of John and his epistles, especially 1 John, love is a major theme. I want to highlight three verses in particular.

The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. 1 John 2:10 – It is evidence of a transformed life to love others the way Christ loved. Plus, if you think about it, there are a host of sins you will not commit if you love others like Christ. You won’t lie or cheat someone. You won’t commit sexual sins. You won’t be overcome with arrogance. Everything is different.

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. 1 John 3:14 – It is evidence and reassurance to us that we love others. If we ever have doubts about our salvation, we can always return to this checkpoint – do we love others?

No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:12 – Now don’t let the word perfected cause confusion. John doesn’t mean that God’s love is somehow lacking until we get involved. That’s not it at all. This draws on an older meaning of perfected. God’s love is completed when we love others. Think of it like this — God’s love began with God the Father, with His redemptive plan. His love was manifested, made evident in Jesus Christ. God’s love then reaches a final stage when His people demonstrate love toward others, imitating Him.

Of course, we’ll never be able to love perfectly as long as we are in our natural bodies. But that is a post for another day. We’ll wrap up next week when take a closer look at the time when all things, including all of creation, are made new.

All Things New: The Covenant

By Paula Wiseman Leave a Comment

It’s a new year and our thoughts naturally tend toward making a fresh start. As believers, we have already experienced the freshest start possible. Our sins have been wiped away completely, and we are a new creation. Paul says as much in 2 Corinthians 5:17. We have a new birth, new life, new position, new nature, new goals, new relationships, a new mission, a new purpose … and many more. But the key to all of this, we learned last week, was God’s divine initiative. One of the ways that initiative was manifested was God initiating a covenant with individuals and with groups of people. And we learn about those in Hebrews.

Before we discuss the covenants themselves, it’s important to realize that they are solely a function of God’s grace. Yes, Abraham was a man of faith, but God’s decision to cut a covenant with the patriarch came before Abram exercised any faith in God. It wasn’t a case of God reviewing humanity and deciding Abram was someone He could work with, someone He wanted on His team. No. Fallen humanity never seeks God or the things of God. But God does seek us, and He graciously calls us into a relationship with Him. Abram wasn’t a party to the first covenant in Scripture but his is the first we’ll consider.

Abraham

In Hebrews 6:13-14, the writer recalls the covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 22.

For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.”

Even though the writer doesn’t cite the entire covenant and its promises, they were certainly in view to him and to his readers. Those promises included an inheritance of land in Canaan and a unique identity as God’s people. God chose a people for Himself, the descendants of Abraham. Later, we’ll find out just what it means to be a descendant of Abraham.

Moses

When we think of covenants, we think of the covenant God made with Israel through the Exodus. In Exodus 19 God invites the people to live as His people, under His law. While the people immediately accepted that offer, especially after seeing the miraculous deliverance from Egypt, things went south quickly.

As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?
Hebrews 3:15-16

The covenant based on keeping God’s law was a failure because the people were rebellious. Note it was not a problem with God’s law. Paul explains in Romans 7 the law was good. It points out how high God’s standards are and how short we fall. Even if we think things would have been different if WE had been at Sinai, if WE had seen those miracles … the truth is, WE have already failed. A quick dip on social media provides enough evidence that, left to ourselves, we are in deep trouble. Better evidence is in Romans 3 where Paul plainly tells us that none of us are good, none of us seek after God.

While that first covenant had a system in place to cover our sins and delay judgment, there was no permanent way to erase our sins. That’s why God initiated a New Covenant in Christ.

The NEW Covenant

Christ Himself explained in the Upper Room that He was inaugurating a new covenant, guaranteed by His blood. The writer of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34 about the New Covenant.

For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant…”
Hebrews 8:8-9

This is how we know the New Covenant wasn’t a last-minute idea God threw together when Israel couldn’t keep the Law. HE knew we wouldn’t be able to keep the Law. We, however, had to see for ourselves. (We’re stubborn that way.) God knew all along that redemption through the blood of Christ was the only way our sins could be dealt with and satisfy both His justice and His grace.

Hebrews 9 explains (and it is absolutely worth the long quote):

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 of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
Hebrews 9:11-15.

The blood of goats and bulls could only go so far. How much MORE will the blood of Christ Jesus Himself, freely offered, purify us! This is how we become the people of God by faith like Abraham. We believe God that Christ’s death is sufficient and is available to us. God accounts that to us and we are considered righteous.

Now that’s not the end of the story, and we don’t get to simply sit around patting ourselves on the back. Under the covenant made while Moses led the people, obedience was expected in order to enjoy the blessings of the covenant. Deuteronomy 27 describes how the Israelites lined up on Mounts Ebal and Gerizim to rehearse the curses for disobedience and the blessings for obedience.

Even under the New Covenant, believers have a responsibility. While we’ll look at the charge more next week, here’s how the writer of Hebrews lays it out.

Therefore, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
Hebrews 10:19-24

All Things New: The Initiative

By Paula Wiseman

It’s a new year and our thoughts naturally tend toward making a fresh start and wondering how things are going to be different (and hopefully better) this year. But as believers, we have already experienced the freshest start possible. Our sins have been wiped away completely, and we are a new creation. Paul says as much in 2 Corinthians 5:17. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” We have a new birth, new life, new position, new nature, new goals, new relationships, a new mission, a new purpose … and many more. But the key to all of this, the only way anything becomes new – including us – rests with God and His divine initiative. And we learn about it, among other places, in Ezekiel.

The Problem

Ezekiel prophesied from Babylonian captivity and spoke to his fellow exiles. His words are blunt and direct. In chapter 18, he explains that everyone is accountable for his own sins. While the nation of Israel was surely being judged, each person would answer for his himself.

“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,” says the Lord GOD. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin.”
Ezekiel 18:30

So the end result of sin is our ruin, that is, our eternal ruin. That’s a problem. And for God’s people exiled with Ezekiel, the destruction of Jerusalem was only a taste of what lay ahead.

The standards haven’t changed for us today. We are going to be held accountable for what we have done. And while the words “repent and turn from all your transgressions” are simple enough … our success with our resolutions for weight loss and exercise may give us some indication as to how that will go. Bottom line, if it’s our responsibility to keep ourselves sinless, we’re in big trouble.

The Solution

God, through Ezekiel, tells us what we need to get out of our dire situation.

Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel?
Ezekiel 18:31

Very simple. Cast away our transgressions. Get ourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

Okay … but that’s not something we can do. We can’t just get ourselves a new heart, especially since God is talking metaphorically and not about the blood pump in our chests. This is where we need the divine initiative.

The Initiative

God explains in Ezekiel 36:26-27:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

God actually said the same thing back in chapter 11 of Ezekiel, but now that people better understand the mess they’re in, He reiterates what He has done.

I will give. I will take. I will put. THEN we can walk and we can keep and do. If God doesn’t initiate the transaction, we have no hope. However, before we even understood the problem, God had initiated the solution.

And, like many things in Scripture, this is another retelling of the amazing story of what has done for us. In eternity past, He had the plan in place to save us from our sin. God came to find Adam, Adam didn’t go to God. He covered Adam and Eve with skins even before they asked. God called out a people for Himself. God decided to take on flesh and become one of us so He could redeem us. All of this great plan of salvation and rescue is because of God’s divine initiative. All things are made new because He made them new.

Next week we’ll look at the covenant that makes all things new.