Title: I Give You a New Commandment!
Contents
In Hebrews 8, the old covenant and the new covenant appear. If the law given through Moses is the old covenant, then the words Jesus spoke at the time correspond to the new covenant.
Even in the old covenant, there were rites to serve God, which are all the acts performed in the temple according to the ordinances. However, these acts are parables up to now, and offerings and sacrifices cannot make a person's heart perfect, and these things, along with eating and drinking and various washings, become only the rituals of the flesh and are left until reform.
To put it more simply, these offerings and sacrifices only purify the human body (outer), but do not remove the sins in the human heart. Therefore, these actions are all just a model.
Because the first covenant had such a weakness that it could not perfect man, the Jews needed Jesus who came as a new covenant. Regarding this, the writer of Hebrews says, “If the first covenant was faultless, there would be no need for the second.” The new covenant is different from the old covenant, “I will put my law in their minds, and I will write these things in their hearts!”
If the old covenant was about people going to the temple and offering various sacrifices according to the law, the new covenant did not require such formal acts, but “put my law (word) in their minds and put this ( It will breathe life.” In other words, it is to breathe life into those who hear the words (law) of Jesus and consider themselves sinners.
Therefore, from now on, “each one of his own country, and each one of his brother, shall not be taught, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ that they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” He will have mercy and remember their sins no more.” In this way, Jesus came in the new covenant to deliver the first thing, that is, to deliver all those who lived under the aging law through the new covenant.
The text we read today is the same. Unlike the writer of Hebrews, the apostle John calls the old covenant and the new covenant with the old commandment and the new commandment. Here too, the old commandments, needless to say, refer to all the religious lives that were practiced under the law.
However, as we know, the life of faith in the law is always measured by who kept what and how well as the measure of faith. But the law can never be a belief because no one can completely obey it. As imperfect humans, they would rather observe the law, but on the contrary, they make themselves even more transgressors before God.
Thus, living under the law, realizing that one can never live by the law is the law of supreme grace. However, those who believe in Jesus, who has come through the new covenant and new commandments, hear what Jesus says and consider themselves to be sinners, throw away their life under the law, and believe and follow Jesus as their Savior.
No human action is necessary before the new commandment. If you only consider yourself a sinner, then whatever Jesus says or does whatever He tells you to do is to accept the new commandment. So to those who believe and accept what Jesus says, Jesus also gives them the gift of eternal life.
Now, this is not just limited to Jews. The same is true of Christians today. All Christians who have lived under the law of the Holy Spirit up to now are in fact held under the spiritual law of the Holy Spirit, so if you compare them to the people of Israel, they remain under the old commandments of the Old Covenant.
As proof of that, if you look at the lives of Christians today, the Christians at that time only go to the chapel and conduct various formal services just like the Jews, except that the temple in Jerusalem at that time has been converted into a building called the church today. No matter how long they go to church and worship, pay tithing, have the Holy Communion, and have holy water on Sundays, nothing has changed in their hearts.
Just because they are attending church, people pretend to be good like the children of the holy God in the eyes of others, but they are nothing more than bright apricots. Their hearts are full of hatred, envy, jealousy, sexual immorality, thieves, and lies. It is the den of Spiritual people who have received the Holy Spirit should at least try to clean up this den of thieves in their hearts.
And it is believed to be a belief. That is why even the spiritual people have stayed under the old commandment given as a model for the Son, but only when they believe and accept the Son of God who comes as the new master, they will be able to escape from the den of thieves.
Those who hear the words of the spiritual Son of God and realize that they are sinners no longer need to be bound by the spiritual law of the Holy Spirit. In other words, until now, according to the law, I knew that I had to go to the chapel and live a life of faith in order to be successful in the life of faith. If you believe and accept it, it will be the law and will lead to eternal life.
The reason that Christians also gave the law of making the first things old and worn out is to give them the perfect second thing through the Son of God. If Christians today do not know this fact and, like the Jews of Jesus' day, continue to be obsessed with the first thing that He gave as a model, knowing what lies beneath as salvation, and wanting to remain under the Old Covenant, eventually they will all go to destruction just like the Jews.
In order for Christians today not to follow the bitter footsteps of the Jews, the spiritual people should no longer remain under the old commandment, but run to the spiritual Son of God who has come with the new commandment, and listen to what He has to say, until now under the spiritual law. The way to eternal life is to throw away all the old things that you have done and live by listening to the words of the new owner.