THE BENEFITS OF THE NEW COVENANT – PART TWO

I greet you again, friends, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We stopped last time at the point where we were examining the Benefits of the New Covenant. But actually we didn’t even get into it. We looked at the other covenant – the old covenant. And then the reason why this one is called a new one – and that is because the old one has become obsolete. God has replaced it with the new one. And the new one is described as a better covenant established on better promises.

And we also saw that this new covenant is more of a will than a covenant entered into on equal terms like the marriage covenant. This is different; and no wonder it is called a testament. And a testament is a solemn authentic instrument in writing by which a person declares his will as to the disposal of his estate and effect after his death. So this is what the new covenant really is. But God says it was a covenant with Israel. We also saw how and why this covenant is enjoyed today by believers in Christ. It is Jesus who has inaugurated it or ratified it with His own blood the day He was crucified because He said just before He was crucified; for this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins. And then of course, He says under this new covenant God will write His laws in the minds of people and enable them to keep His laws. Nobody will tell his brother, go this way or go that way – because it is written in the hearts and mind of people. And that is what the Holy Spirit does in the heart of the believer.

What are the benefits of the new covenant? Let us consider just three benefits of the new covenant very quickly.

1. Those who come under the new covenant – those who enjoy the new covenant have their sins forgiven; and they have their assurance of this forgiveness of their sins. This forgiveness goes beyond the initial forgiveness. It includes the forgiveness of subsequent sins or offences against God. The forgiveness of sin is the release from bondage or imprisonment, permitting the forgiven (the released sinner) to live according to the standard of God. God does not condone sin. The penalty for sin is death. But because Jesus has paid this penalty by dying for our sins God forgives everyone who accepts Jesus Christ, accepts the sacrifice that Jesus has made. And one who has agreed to forsake his or her sins. Well but you’d say, it also covers subsequent sins. Yes: because even though this sinner has been forgiven and has become a child of God that does not make him or her sinlessly perfect even though some people teach it. If that is the case then the scripture will be contradicting itself.

1 John 2:1

My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. ² And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

And so God has made that provision that you the believe, if you slip and fall into sin, not practicing sin, not living in it, that same blood that forgave you the first time you received Jesus as Savior will also forgive you and cleanse you.

2. Benefit number two: Those under the new covenant have the ability to obey God and to do His will. The Lord shows the sinner what sin is but cannot give him or her the ability to overcome sin. The ability to overcome sin is found in the provision of the new covenant. And this ability stems from two sources:
3. The new nature that God impacts to the believer,
4. The Holy Spirit who resides in the new nature.

He who commits sin, 1 John says, is of the devil. And it says that the reason why the one who is born of God does not commit sin (present tense in the Greek, which means a habitual behavior or conduct) is because of the seed of God that resides in him. And it is this seed of God (this nature of God) that will make it impossible for anyone to live in sin and enjoy sin. So any time anybody is living in sin and enjoying sin it is a clear evidence that the nature of God (the seed of God – the sperma of God: that is the Greek word) is not in him; and he does not belong to Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:7

⁷ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

It is the power of God in the believer. Much of our problem lies in the fact of what God has done in the new covenant becoming our experience.

Friend, Christian friend, how many times have you prayed, Holy Spirit! Holy Spirit! Come on down! Come on down! when He came down on the day of Pentecost. How many times have you prayed Lord, crucify me; let me die to self?

Romans 6:11

¹¹ Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

How many times have you said, Lord Jesus pray for me; Holy Spirit pray for me? It is like one who has received Jesus as savior praying: Jesus, please please die for me. Die for me.

The fact and the experience. You have to receive the fact; believe the fact and act on the fact.

Benefit number one, your sins are forgiven; and you have assurance of it.

Benefit number two, you have the ability to obey God and to do His will.

3. Benefit number three: Those under the new covenant can commune with God or have inward fellowship with God directly. They can know God deeply within. They can have direct access to God. They don’t need to go through an intermediary. The only intermediary we need to get to God is Jesus Christ. There is one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. That is what the scripture teaches. And so when you have come through Christ to God you have direct access. On the day that Jesus Christ died on the cross, just as He gave up His Spirit, we were told that the veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple was torn from top to bottom. From top (that is God acting) to bottom, exposing the Holy of Holies. Nobody had access to it except the high priest. And only once in a year. But from that day when Jesus gave up His Spirit, when Jesus has put this new covenant into place…God was demonstrating that all who would come to Jesus Christ, all who would believe would have access to Him. Direct access.

God’s design for every Israelite to approach Him directly that. That was His design. For every Israelite to approach Him directly in Exodus 19, they declined and asked for an intermediary. God appointed the tribe of Levi to represent Israel before God. But under the new covenant God reverts to His original plan. But sadly many believers insist on living like Israel under the old covenant. They need someone to hear from God for them; and pray to God for them; and serve God for them. Unfortunately, some of the people they rely on to connect them to God are not themselves connected to God. What a tragedy! In fact, some are connected to the wrong source to the devil.

Beside the direct communion with God, under the new covenant, there is the privilege of knowing God deeply within. We can know God – God’s work; we can know God’s ways when we enter into this new covenant. You can know God’s person or you can know God Himself. You can know God’s Person or Himself. The later is an intimate knowledge of God that produces transformation and power. And that is the privilege of those who have come under the new covenant.

Friend, are you one of them? The opportunity is for you now to do so. Then you will enjoy the privileges, the greatest of them being – this access to God – your sins having been forgiven. O nothing is better than that. Nothing is greater than that, in the whole world.

PRAYER:

Father, let it be son now for those who have heard me, that they will come into this experience of the new covenant which Jesus has sealed with His blood. O let it be so, Father, in Jesus Name. Amen!