"In or out?!" How many of us heard our parents yell that at us when we were children? Like most kids we always seem to want to keep going outside and then inside for what seems like an eternity. The banging screen door and the tracking of dirt throughout the house eventually dissolves the patience of any parent. The bottom line is that you are either going to be outside for the duration of the day or inside. Make up your mind! In other words, you can't do both. The other day I was involved in a discussion about whether or not it is "evil" for a Christian to be wealthy. I don't think it is evil, but the individual asking the question eventually pondered why Christians criticize pastors who are wealthy. Eventually, the discussion ventured into a conversation about the Old Testament and the New Testament and which one a Christian is under. Of course, I believe that the Old Testament, the Mosaic Law, is for unbelievers and not Christians. Then my friend wrote the following, "Can't seperate old testiment from the new testiment...You can't say I will "obey" the word in the new but disreguard the old... (sic)" My jaw dropped.
Christians are so dedicated to being "obedient" that they have to look towards the Old Testament in order to find things to be obedient to. Unbeknownst to them is the fact that they are destroying the New Covenant in the process. Personally, I feel that the reason many hang on to the Old Testament is because they don't understand the role of the Holy Spirit in a believers life. They basically believe that if you don't have rules to live by you will obviously sow to your flesh. When, in actuality, it is those subjecting themselves to the Old Testament that are sowing to the flesh. The major difference between the two covenants is that the Old Testament addressed issues of the flesh, while the New Testament addressed issues of the Spirit. Nearly every blessing received under the Old Testament was as the result of obedience. In Deuteronomy we can read that if you followed God's laws, "He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land that he swore to your forefathers to give you (Deuteronomy 7:12)." Well, who wouldn't want those blessings? But, since we don't live in a society dominated by agriculture and farming we will substitute modern day desires like cars, fancy clothes and full refrigerators for the crops, grains and new wine mentioned.
You can get an idea of why these types of Old Testament passages are appealing to your average person. What person, regardless of their faith, doesn't have a financial, physical or relationship problem they want fixed? They are ripe for this type of teaching. They will hear "if you" only do this, this and this God will bless you. And when you aren't experiencing the blessings you seek then you must not be "obedient" enough. Where is Jesus in all of this? He is nowhere to be found. The entire focus is on you and your ability to be obedient. And there is always a verse to cling onto to justify your futile attempts at getting blessed. But, you will always here these same people say we aren't teaching obedience to law we are "obeying His word." Same thing. James said, "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it (James 2:10)." None of these people are obeying the entire law. Rather they will pick those laws that are easiest to obey and promise rewards that they want. For example, look at tithing. You will hear Christians hanging on to passages like the ones in Malachi 3 that talk about "robbing God" if you don't tithe. Or if you do tithe God will "open the floodgates of heaven." Again, is that appealing to the flesh or the spirit? Never is it mentioned that this entire passage was written to the Israelites hundreds of years before there was anything close to the Christian Church.
What Christians, who are trying to use the Old Testament to justify their worldly desires, don't understand is all that they already have been given in Christ. If we are honest, we are trying to fill a spiritual need through sowing to the flesh. By subjecting ourselves to the law in hopes of being blessed by God we are telling ourselves that we haven't been blessed by God and need to find what we don't have from Him in the world. However, the Bible says that God "has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3)." If you have every spiritual blessing perhaps that is telling you that God didn't promise to bless you physically! The purpose of the law was to lead us to Christ by showing us our inability to live up to God's standard of perfection. There is nothing in the Bible that says we have been saved in order to, in turn, subject ourselves to trying to live under a covenant designed to lead us to Christ in the first place. God has blessed us spiritually so that we will not seek the world's blessings. It is in this way that we are able to rest and allow God to use us to advance His Kingdom. We cannot be used by Him to be a blessing if we are focused on having Him bless our flesh. The Old Testament Law is not for a Christian at all, no part of it. If it were, then we wouldn't be told that, "By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear (Hebrews 8:13)" Are you "in" the New Covenant or "out" trying to live the Old Covenant? May God continue to reveal to you the blessings you already have in Christ.
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