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There are two major covenants in the Bible, Old and New. The old was based on the law and man's performance. The new is based on grace and in it God deals with man based on our faith in Jesus finished work on the cross. Study the New Covenant and realize for yourself that God states
"I will forgive their iniquity, I will remember their sin no more.” Jer 31:34b
For I will forgive their iniquities, and remember their sins no more." Heb 8:12
Then he adds: "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more." Heb 10:17
Make sure you are not trying to mix the New and Old Covenant. They are drastically different and are not meant to be mixed. The New completely replaced the Old as you can see HERE. "In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away." Hebrews 8:13 The book of Hebrews goes into detail explaining how we are under the New and no longer under the Old Covenant. God tells us that He found fault with the Old Covenant and that it has been replaced by a better covenant.
But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. 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, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. Hebrews 8:6-13 NAS
Paul, the former Pharisee of the Pharisee's, a man with great understanding and respect for God's law, understood we are completely under the New Covenant of Grace and Truth and no longer under the first (covenant of law brought by Moses) or a mixture of the two. In the book of Galatians Paul rebukes the Galatians for abandoning the gospel of grace he preached to them. They actually had not abandoned it they had added the law to it. They had been deceived into mixing the Old and New Covenant and Paul states this is not the Gospel he preached. Paul warns us that mixing law with grace makes grace of no effect, cutting us off from Christ. The gospel is the gospel of grace, not grace plus even a leaven of law. God's power to stop sin and transform lives is found in the grace of Christ alone.
You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. Gal 5:4 NAS
Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. Gal 5:4 KJV
But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. Rom 11:6 NAS
Legalistic Jews had slipped in and deceived the Galatians by saying yes you must believe in Jesus, but you also must add to it and keep (required to keep, obligated to keep) the law of Moses to be saved. Paul and the other Apostles totally destroy this lie in Acts 15. Today, we still hear this deception in veiled ways. For many years I unknowingly lived with one foot in the Old and one in the New Covenant. The sad part is that the Old Covenant keeps man's eyes on himself and his performance (self-conscious) which leads man into condemnation in his thoughts. The new covenant keeps man's eyes focused on Jesus (Christ conscious) and His finished work on the cross. The truth is that if you are in Christ (accepted Jesus as Savior), you have satisfied the law of Moses in Christ and are thus walking in the spirit. You have moved into the worship of God in Spirit and Truth. By acknowledging your need for a Savior you agreed that Gods law is holy, just and right and you recognized you cannot keep it. Your actions uphold the validity of God's law over your life. The very fact that you cried out for Jesus means you want to obey God and admit you cannot. The New Covenant is about believing and trusting God. We cannot add to Jesus finished work with our works. We cannot perfect ourselves by the flesh.
You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Gal 3:1-4 NAS
Here is a great example of what I am talking about. Like me, maybe you have struggled with producing the following attributes listed in 2 Peter 1:5-7 "For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love."
Do you know why the Bible says you do not have these? "For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins." 2 Peter 1:9. In other words, if we forget we are forgiven we will not act like we are forgiven. The truth is you have been completely forgiven and this goes hand and hand with how much God loves you. However, if you still think you are under the law in your mind, or if you mix even a leaven of law with grace, you will live under the condemnation in your mind that Satan desires. You need to soak daily in the truth found in the New Covenant, eliminating all false beliefs planted by Satan.
Another way to look at a believers situation is that the law of Moses required the law be kept or an acceptable sacrifice be paid if it was not. The acceptable sacrifice option was part of the law. In the old testament the priest did not examine the sinner who brought the lamb, he examined the lamb and if it was acceptable, the sinner went home free. It is the same here, God already knows you have fallen short. The sacrifice you brought was the lamb of God, Jesus Himself. Your offering was more than acceptable. Your sins are forgiven and you are free. It would be similar to being charged with a crime today and finding out you need to pay the fine or go to jail. If you could afford it you would pay the fine and go free because in that payment the law would be satisfied. As believers, we realized we are lawbreakers and on our own could never pay the required fine. Therefore we brought an acceptable payment/sacrifice that God himself provided (just like he provided the sacrifice for Abraham) when we accepted Jesus and his FINISHED work on the cross. Thus we satisfied the law of Moses in Christ. You are loved by God, forgiven, redeemed, blessed and will (never come under his condemnation John 3:18, Rom 8:1). Do not doubt God as Eve did just believe. If you have accepted Jesus, you are already in the spirit. Just like you needed to learn to walk when you were a baby, you are now learning to walk in in the spirit by the spirit of the law, not the letter. The Bible is very clear that the spirit of all of God's written laws is love. The spirit of a law is the reason the author wrote the letter in the first place. The spirit is the only thing that can truly fulfill the authors desire. Love is the only thing that fulfills God's law and God's desire for us.
Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, “YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Rom 13:8-10 NAS
For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." Gal 5:14 NAS
This is why God has qualified us to be ministers of the spirit and not the letter.
And He has qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 2 Cor 3:6 BSB
Next look at how the Apostle Paul presented the gospel. This is really Good News! We should do the same. Jesus came to earth on an all out rescue mission. He did not pull you into the life raft to toss you out later.
"From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.(don't reject Jesus) For he says, In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." 2 Cor 5:16-21, 6:1-2
The Bible states we are in a spiritual battle. The enemy will try and get you to fear as you let go completely from trusting in your own ability to keep the letter of the law and works, fully trusting God to keep you and walking more exclusively in Gods grace from faith to faith. The argument he may try and present to you directly or through other believers is that too much grace will lead you to sin. This is the same accusation that was leveled at the Apostle Paul a number of times (Rom 3:8, 6:1, 6:15) leading him to strongly defend salvation by grace alone through faith alone. Scripture tells us this is a faulty argument but since we are so accustomed to living under a combination of law and grace you may be tempted to believe it. You may need to ask yourself "What is my motivation for wanting to walk completely in Gods grace?" I would bet that your motivation is not to be able to freely sin. If it is, then I would suggest that you are not born again and need to first accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Personally, my motivation was to live and walk in the freedom Christ died to give me and to be a better example to others of the love of Christ. As I studied I realized how much of my life Satan has stolen from me over the years. I can tell you from personal experience that relying totally on Gods grace does not lead a born-again person to sin more. As a matter of fact, the Bible teaches just the opposite.
"For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace." Romans 6:14.
Sin will have no dominion over you specifically because you are under grace and not the law. This also tells us that sin will have dominion over those who are under the law. The law actually aroused a desire within us to sin according to Paul. "But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power." Romans 7:8 Paul states that apart from the law sin has no power. A full realization of God's unconditional love and grace will lead you to lose the desire to do some things you have done in the past, things that may have haunted and condemned you for years. This change of heart and mind is true repentance due to the love and kindness of God. .....God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance Romans 2:4b.
When you truly realize how much God loves you and that you have been totally forgiven, sin will lose its luster and you will desire on your own to please your Father. This is exactly what we as earthly parents want from our children. We want them to want to do the right thing of their own choice not because they fear our punishment. As a matter of fact, it is not our desire to punish our children. Our Father in heaven is no different in this regard. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" Romans 5:8. God took our punishment upon Himself. Praise God! The best way to counteract this attack from Satan is to learn the truth, you are no longer under the Old Covenant, the law which includes the 10 commandments. You are under grace. This can be clearly learned by studying and renewing your mind with the New Covenant and understanding that it fully (not partially) replaced the Old Covenant.
If you have placed your faith in Jesus, He shed His blood to bring you the New Covenant that has totally replaced the old. If we still live in the old or a mixture of the two, we are in essence rejecting the New Covenant Jesus died to bring us. God did not bring a message that will increase sin in the world when He placed us exclusively under grace. Trust God and let Him hold you up. Learn about and walk in the New Covenant and walk in His victory in this life.
And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood. Luke 22:20
More New Covenant Studies:
How Christians Dilute the Power of the Gospel in Their Lives
Walking by the Spirit is Gods Will for Your Life, Guaranteed
If Sin Has Dominion in Your Life, You are Living Under the Law, Not Grace
Jesus is The End of The Law for Believers
I Am Holy, I Am Sanctified, I Am Perfected
Christians are Blessed Because God is Not Imputing our Sins
How Grace Defeated Sin in My Life
Misconceptions About Not Being Under the Law as a Christian
Satan Will Always Point You Back to the Law
How Much Law Does it Take to Make Grace of No Effect?
Do You Know the Spirit of All of God's Laws?
Christians Are Not Qualified to be Ministers of the Letter of the Law
Letter Kills, Spirit Gives Life
Christians Are Not Under the Law of Moses, Our Standard is Much Higher
Read many more New Covenant studies HERE.
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...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them... 2 Cor 5:19
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