Preface Jesus is God because He

Preface
Jesus is God because He was with God in the beginning -- the Word. He therefore has the attributes of the Divine. Jesus is “Son” because He was born of woman. He therefore has the attributes of man and can understand human flesh. Because He holds both attributes, He feels and understands as we do, yet has the authority and power to execute righteous justice. God could not stay (as to walk among) in the presence of evil, for the light has no part of darkness; therefore, God became flesh (John 1:14) to walk into the presence of sin to lead us “out of Egypt (sin) and into the “desert of testing” - the wilderness of this world, putting us in the position of being in the world but not of the world.
He emptied Himself. . .
He paid the debt that we owed, redeeming us as His Own: Proffering gratuitously to reach out to man to return to Him. Basically, the Old Testament is concerned with bringing us to Christ.
God was pertinacious concerning His covenants. The three that we need to be most concerned with are:
1. The covenant of Faith with Abraham. This was a covenant for obedience by Faith from Abraham, and God promised to make a great nation of Abraham and that they would possess the land of Canaan.
2. The covenant with the children of Israel. The law then was given to Moses at that time. Exodus 19:3-6. God alone set the conditions, and in return for Israel’s loyalty and obedience God promised to love Israel and protect them, giving them His presence. Exodus 33:13-17. The Jews broke covenant with God again and again, and God destroyed the relationship. Jeremiah 6:16-19. Malachi 2:2.
3. The covenant through Faith in Christ for salvation. Matthew 26:28. The new covenant by God’s grace brought the opportunity for man to return to God, through faith by obedience under Christ’s blood, to receive forgiveness of sin. God alone set the conditions for this covenant, also, but He promised eternal life. It is superior and founded on better promises. (Hebrews 8: 6-13)
Thus we would move from the Faith of Abraham, through the learning of disciplined obedience, to the Faith in Christ.
If we believe the Bible and observe it as the Word of God, then our whole life should be centered on its precepts (a command or principle given as a general rule of action), and our heart should be humbled before God. We should be giving Him the honor due Him in obedience, and giving the first fruits of our lips and our time. We should live as though we trusted in His Promises that we will receive through His Son, the Christ. Not as something due us because we “obeyed”, but in humble gratitude for payment of what we owed.
We were promised a rose garden, but we had to learn how to handle the thorns. Christ was crowned with the thorns for us. How do we handle Christ?
Now God calls all men unto Himself through His son, the prophet Moses predicted that would be raised up and who we would be required to listen to in obedience. Those that hear that call and believe it, by electing to respond to it, are given the right to become sons of God by obedience to that will. (John 1:12) After answering the call of God to cleanse our consciences through baptism (Heb. 9:14; 10:22), our lives should be given to His care, to be doing what is right in His sight. Through obedience to His will in the act of baptism, it is then that God adds us to His Church (Acts 2:38-41), putting us under the New Covenant in Christ’s blood, and it determines our relationship with God, and our relationship with our fellow man. God, The Covenants, and You is designed to show the purpose of those covenants, what God demands of us, the principles ingrained in them, and how we should apply them to our lives in order to do what is right in God’s sight.
Introduction
What is a Covenant?
According to Webster’s dictionary a covenant is an act of obligating oneself to a course of action with an obligating factor that binds one to that course of action. The power of such a factor was a bond with a condition annexed and a penalty for lack of fulfilling those conditions. It was generally a written agreement or promise usually under seal between two or more parties, especially for the performance of some action. In the Old Testament, the covenants that were made by the people of the land, including the Gentiles, were sealed by blood, in the sense of cutting between two pieces of flesh (Jer. 34:18), indicating the seriousness of the bond. (An expression we have come to know as “cutting a bargain”?)
Gen_15:18-17:14 In that day Jehovah made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: 17:2 And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be the father of a multitude of nations. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. And God said unto Abraham, And as for thee, thou shalt keep my covenant, thou, and thy seed after thee throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee: every male among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of a covenant betwixt me and you. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.
Circumcision sealed the bond between God and man in the old covenant; baptism seals the bond between God and man under the blood of Christ.
Rom_4:11 and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision; that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might be reckoned unto them;
2Ti 2:19 Howbeit the firm foundation of God standeth, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his: and, Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.
The covenant with Abraham was for the obedience by faith of Abraham, and God promised land, prosperity, and through the posterity of Sarah’s son it was to include the “seed of the promise” that was to bring salvation. Abraham’s obligation was that every man born in his house was to be circumcised on the eighth day after birth, and those bought and brought into his household were to be circumcised, for all generations, and if this was not performed the covenant was broken and that man was excluded. Gen..17:12-14. The analogy of circumcision in the New Testament covenant was the circumcision of the heart, by separation between the “flesh” and the “Spirit”. The ‘killing’ of the old man of sin and burying him in the waters of baptism to be ‘resurrected’ to walk a new life given to the Spirit under the blood of Christ. (1 Pet. 1:23-25 : Titus 2:11-14)
The covenant God made with the Children of Jacob/Israel under Moses was to bring them under the obligation of the Law and made sin manifest. God wanted to make them a royal priesthood unto Himself, but they were afraid and wanted to hear God’s commands through Moses only. The children of God under the LAW were given no choice but to obey or die, just as God told Adam that if he and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil they would surely die, which meant separation from God as well as physical death in the future. God wanted honor and obedience from Israel. However, in return for Israel’s obedience, God gave physical and eternal promises. It was supposed to have been an everlasting covenant, but the Children of Israel continued to break the covenant with God, so God took it away and nailed it to the cross when Christ was crucified for our sins to make way for a better and more perfect covenant. (Heb. ) But it was the “toiling of the works” of the law that was done away with – not God’s precepts or statutes. Sin is still sin, and we are to walk in the light as Christ is in the light, and not after the sinful flesh (condemned by the ‘The Law’). We were freed from the binding of that Law because it was only the “tutor to bring us to Christ” making it understood what sin is and what God expects of us in our service to Him.
Sometimes our path leads us over the hot sands of the desert. Our feet drag, and we dehydrate; our lips burn and chap, and our mind sees illusions of beauty and peace that is not there! In seeking out a waterhole, we might find a place that looks so refreshing, but find it poisoned! Where do we find relief? The journey that we take, may not always be upon a pleasant path, for there will be hills and valleys; forests, plains and deserts; but there will also be paths mapped out to make that journey just a little bit more secure, if we follow those that we have known to be traveled safely before us. The Old Testament is a guide book for our comfort and compass, and there will be paths that are marked with warnings, as we reach the forks that lead aside; so if we make the right choices our journey’s end will not be unattainable.
The New Covenant under the blood of Christ, because of an indestructible life, brought the promise of Salvation. The blood of bulls and goats, the innocent whose blood poured out, was only the substitute for man, the guilty, while pointing to the ultimate sacrifice. Christ, whose innocent blood was poured out, was substitute for man, the guilty, once for all; for those under the Law who had been obedient, and for those of the Christian dispensation who are obedient by faith under Christ’s blood, (Hebrews 10:1-10), and it is God who allows or disallows under His righteous judgment. Again, man had no choice but to obey or die, but through the mercies of His Grace, God promised blessings and life everlasting, if we would follow His way, obeying and keeping His commandments; if we fulfill our part and enter into that covenant with Him according to His Will, and then maintaining those covenant obligations according to His Will – as the designation of a true priest -- then we will inherit the promise of life through Jesus Christ.
And what must we do to receive – to take hold of -- that Grace? Acts 2:38 states it very plainly:
“Then Peter said unto them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
We then are the recipients of the gift of life, given by God’s grace through His Spirit by divine assurance, if we continue to walk in His light.
Entering the covenant is what we understand as obedience to the “gospel” and yielding ourselves to His Will. The “gospel” was the “good news” giving man the opportunity to return to a good relationship with God; i.e.: the covenant with God through Christ since He became our High Priest (our mediator in the “new” covenant in His blood). (Gal 3:19-22; 1Tim. 2:5; Heb. 8:6; Heb. 12:23-25)
Christ came to fulfill all righteousness, and propitiate (as the atoning sacrifice) for man, so that man should be able to enter into that new covenant in His blood. Christ died upon the cross, in our stead. His body died to sin as He put the flesh and all its evil to death. He rose from the grave to the Spirit, victorious over the grave, receiving the power to redeem those who would return to God in obedience. Because He passed through death (separation of flesh from the spirit) (Hebrews 2:14), he paid the full penalty for the violations committed during the space of the Old Testament, living an exemplary life under the Law without blemish to fulfill the requirements of the Law, and became the mediator of the New Testament (our High Priest), the channel through which we go; and we are offered the divine assurance to come forth and take hold of that which is proffered, by obedience to the gospel -- the proof of the trust and expectations of our conviction.