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ADisciple
Member



Joined: 2007/2/3
Posts: 835
Alberta, Canada

 Re:

There are several "ifs" with regard to the new covenant.

"...If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel... (Col. 1:23).

"Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts..." (Heb. 3:7).

So, it has to be said that the new covenant is a conditional covenant.

This does not mean that our part involves "works" after the manner of the old covenant.

"...Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship..."

And so our part of the covenant is the rest of faith. Our part is to believe, and continue to believe, come what may. This is what I had in mind when I said, "Our part is to let Him do that." It is His work, not ours. But He will not do it apart from our willing consent and cooperation.




_________________
Allan Halton

 2014/9/6 21:52Profile









 Re: Our Part?

Trxx said, "I have yet to discover any material, written or oral, that discuss the terms of the New Covenant."

Look at these quotes from THE TWO COVENANTS by Andrew Murray

This is nothing but the restoration of the original relation between God and the man He had made in His likeness. He was on earth to be the very image of God, because God was to live and to work all in him, and he to find his glory and blessedness in thus owing all to God. This is the exceeding glory of the New Covenant, of the Pentecostal dispensation, that by the Holy Spirit God could now again be the indwelling life of His people, and so make the promise a reality: "I will cause you to walk in My statutes." With God's presence secured to us every moment of the day---"I will not turn away from them"; with God's "fear put into our heart " by His own Spirit, and our heart thus responding to His holy presence; with our hearts thus made right with God, we can, we shall walk in His statutes, and keep His judgments.

And this is indeed the glory of the New Covenant, the glory that excelleth, that this provision has been made. In a way that no human thought could have devised, by a stipulation that never entered into any human covenant, by an undertaking in which God's infinite condescension and power and faithfulness are to be most wonderfully exhibited, by a supernatural mystery of Divine wisdom and grace, the New Covenant provides a guarantee, not only for God's faithfulness, but for man's too! And this in no other way than by God Himself undertaking to secure man's part as well as His own. Do try and get hold of this.

Here is the inmost secret of the New Covenant. It deals with the heart of man in a way of Divine power. It not only appeals to the heart by every motive of fear or love, of duty or gratitude. That the law also did. But it reveals God Himself, cleansing our heart and making it new, changing it entirely from a stony heart into a heart of flesh, a tender, living, loving heart, putting His Spirit within it, and so, by His Almighty Power and Love, breathing and working in it, making the promise true, "I will cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments." A heart in perfect harmony with Himself, a life and walk in His way---God has engaged in Covenant to work this in us. He undertakes for our part in the Covenant as much as for His own.

This is nothing but the restoration of the original relation between God and the man He had made in His likeness. He was on earth to be the very image of God, because God was to live and to work all in him, and he to find his glory and blessedness in thus owing all to God. This is the exceeding glory of the New Covenant, of the Pentecostal dispensation, that by the Holy Spirit God could now again be the indwelling life of His people, and so make the promise a reality: "I will cause you to walk in My statutes." With God's presence secured to us every moment of the day---"I will not turn away from them"; with God's "fear put into our heart " by His own Spirit, and our heart thus responding to His holy presence; with our hearts thus made right with God, we can, we shall walk in His statutes, and keep His judgments.

WE have here four titles given to our Lord. Jesus in connection with the New Covenant. He is Himself called a Covenant. The union between God and man, which the Covenant aims at, was wrought out in Him personally; in Him the reconciliation between the human and Divine was perfectly effected; in Him His people find the Covenant with all its blessings; He is all that God has to give, and is the assurance that it is given . . . . He is called the Messenger of the Covenant, because He came to establish and to proclaim it . . . . He is the Surety of the Covenant, not only because He paid our debt, but as He is Surety to us for God, that God will fulfil His part; and Surety for us with God, that we will fulfil our part . . . . And He is Mediator of the Covenant, because as the Covenant was established in His atoning blood, is administered and applied by Him, is entered upon alone by faith in Him, so it is experimentally known only through the power of His resurrection life, and His never-ceasing intercession. All these names point to the one truth, that in the New Covenant Christ is all in all.

A SURETY is one who stands good for another, that a certain engagement will be faithfully performed. Jesus is the Surety of the New Covenant. He stands surety with us for God--- that God's part in the Covenant will faithfully be performed. And He stands surety with God for us, that our part will be faithfully performed too. If we are to live in covenant with God, everything depends upon our knowing aright what Jesus secures to us. The more we know and trust Him, the more assured will our faith be that its every promise and every demand will be fulfilled, that a life of faithful keeping of God's Covenant is indeed possible, because Jesus is the Surety of the Covenant. He makes God's faithfulness and ours equally sure.

If you would be delivered from all this, learn ever to read the Book of the New Covenant in the New Covenant Spirit. One of the very first articles of the New Covenant has reference to this matter. When God says, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, He engages that the words of His Holy Book shall no longer be mere outward teaching, but that what they command shall be our very disposition and delight, wrought in us as a birth and a life by the Holy Spirit. Every word of the New Covenant then becomes a Divine assurance of what may be obtained by the Holy Spirit's working. The soul learns to see that the letter killeth, that the flesh profiteth nothing. The study, and knowledge of, the delight in, Bible words and thoughts, cannot profit, except as the Holy Spirit is waited on to make them life. The acceptance of Holy Scripture in the letter, the reception of it in the human understanding, is seen to be as fruitless as was Israel's at Sinai. But as the Word of God, spoken by the Living God through the Spirit into the heart that waits on Him, it is found to be quick and powerful. It then is a word that worketh effectually in them that believe, giving within the heart the actual possession of the very grace of which the Word has spoken.

If we have at all understood the teaching of God's word in regard to the New Covenant, we know what it reveals in regard to the two parties who meet in it. On God's side there is the promise to do for us and in us all that we need to serve and enjoy Him. He will rejoice in doing us good, with His whole heart. He will be our God, doing for us all that a God can do, giving Himself as God to be wholly ours. And on our side there is the prospect held out of our being able, in the power of what He engages to do, to "turn to Him with our whole heart," "to love Him with all our heart and all our strength." The first and great commandment, the only possible terms on which God can fully reveal Himself, or give Himself to His creature to enjoy, is," Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." That law is unchangeable. The New Covenant comes and brings us the grace to obey, by lifting us into the love of God as the air we breathe, and enabling us, in the faith of that grace, to rise and be of good courage, and with our whole heart to yield ourselves to the God of the Covenant, and the life in His service.

So Murray makes it clear

The New Covenant provides a guarantee, not only for God's faithfulness, but for man's too!

God has engaged in Covenant to work this in us. He undertakes for our part in the Covenant as much as for His own.

Edit - added last quote.

 2014/9/7 6:39
ADisciple
Member



Joined: 2007/2/3
Posts: 835
Alberta, Canada

 Re:

Excellent quotes by Andrew Murray, Tuc. I have that book (The Two Covenants) on my bookshelf. I will have to read it again.


_________________
Allan Halton

 2014/9/7 10:40Profile
rookie
Member



Joined: 2003/6/3
Posts: 4821
Savannah TN

 Re:

Once God makes a covenant with the Individual it is unconditional. And Andrew Murray's discourse on what the New Covenant means to the individual is as right on the mark as any man could fathom the depth of God love and His ways in this fallen life.

This covenant is thru faith. Even in the Old Testament, even under the Law of Moses, faith expressed in being justified by the Law of Moses was futile. For Paul says it is so.


Rom 4:5
But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,

Rom 4:6
just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works:

Rom 4:7
“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
And whose sins are covered;

Rom 4:8
Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin.”fn

And...


Rom 4:13
For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

Rom 4:14
For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect,



So those who sought salvation through obeying the Law of Moses were not of Abraham's seed.



Murray writes...

"WE have here four titles given to our Lord. Jesus in connection with the New Covenant. He is Himself called a Covenant. The union between God and man, which the Covenant aims at, was wrought out in Him personally; in Him the reconciliation between the human and Divine was perfectly effected; in Him His people find the Covenant with all its blessings; He is all that God has to give, and is the assurance that it is given . . . . He is called the Messenger of the Covenant, "


David writes...

Psa 25:11
For Your name’s sake, O LORD,
Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.

Psa 25:12
Who is the man that fears the LORD?
Him shall Hefn teach in the way Hefn chooses.

Psa 25:13
He himself shall dwell in prosperity,
And his descendants shall inherit the earth.

Psa 25:14
The secret of the LORD is with those who fear Him,
And He will show them His covenant.


again...


"And He will show them His covenant."



To my understanding, every person that has ever lived has been given the testimony that God is that that He is not willing that any should perish. And this is the part of God's influence on man that is conditional. If you choose to listen, if you choose to obey, then God is a rewarder of those who humble themselves and repent.

According to Scripture, the whole counsel of God, it is God who chooses those who respond to His call. The called are unable to make a covenant with God, rather it is God's choice to make an unconditional covenant with man.

Jhn 1:12
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:

Jhn 1:13
who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.



_________________
Jeff Marshalek

 2014/9/7 11:13Profile
rookie
Member



Joined: 2003/6/3
Posts: 4821
Savannah TN

 Re:

This is the Covenant of God to His saints...

Psa 89:3
“I have made a covenant with My chosen,
I have sworn to My servant David:

Psa 89:4
‘Your seed I will establish forever,
And build up your throne to all generations.’ ” Selah

Psa 89:5
And the heavens will praise Your wonders, O LORD;
Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the saints.

.....

Psa 89:15
Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound!
They walk, O LORD, in the light of Your countenance.

Psa 89:16
In Your name they rejoice all day long,
And in Your righteousness they are exalted.

Psa 89:17
For You are the glory of their strength,
And in Your favor our horn is exalted.

Psa 89:18
For our shield belongs to the LORD,
And our king to the Holy One of Israel.


......


Psa 89:26
He shall cry to Me, ‘You are my Father,
My God, and the rock of my salvation.’

Psa 89:27
Also I will make him My firstborn,
The highest of the kings of the earth.

Psa 89:28
My mercy I will keep for him forever,
And My covenant shall stand firm with him.

Psa 89:29
His seed also I will make to endure forever,
And his throne as the days of heaven.


......

Psa 89:33
Nevertheless My lovingkindness I will not utterly take from him,
Nor allow My faithfulness to fail.

Psa 89:34
My covenant I will not break,
Nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips.

Psa 89:35
Once I have sworn by My holiness;
I will not lie to David:

Psa 89:36
His seed shall endure forever,
And his throne as the sun before Me;

Psa 89:37
It shall be established forever like the moon,
Even like the faithful witness in the sky.” Selah


Christ and "His seed shall endure forever."


_________________
Jeff Marshalek

 2014/9/7 11:32Profile
trxx
Member



Joined: 2006/1/27
Posts: 86
ON Canada

 Re: So, it has to be said that the new covenant is a conditional covenant

Yes, ADisciple, I believe that we are on the same page as it were. I see the new covenant as being conditional too because Scripture teaches us that there are but 2 kinds of covenants with God, conditional or unconditional. There are the many "ifs" in the New Testament (Covenant) that speak to our responsibility. You have quoted but a few of those. As you conclude, "He will not do it apart from our willing consent and cooperation" so I agree with you again.
I think that we need to understand the basis of the new covenant, how it works, who is involved, and how each one has a part to play. I think that it is fair to say that some Scripture points to man's responsibility (the "ifs) while other verses speak to God's part. We can know beyond any doubt that God will never break covenant with us. To Him be the glory now and forevermore! I feel that I have already learned much concerning the new covenant, our relationship to the Father, but I am fully cognizant of the fact that there is so much more to learn.


_________________
Bruce

 2014/9/7 16:50Profile





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