November 7, 2024

Passage Read: Hebrews 7-8
Meditation Verses: 8:9-11

Thought

The Old Covenant was given with fire and smoke and earthquake and the sound of a trumpet. Very impressive and frightening, to impress God's Words onto the hearts of the people, to impress His greatness into their hearts. God was very near to them as they traveled between Egypt and Canaan, but still they did not honor or obey Him. And once they entered the promised land, they sometimes did better, but gradually became worse, until the Lord eventually drove them out of the land. They did not continue in His covenant and so He did not care for them. So He prepared a new covenant, by which He would put His law in our hearts and minds, so that we wouldn't even need to be taught by one another. Jesus is the mediator of this new covenant, so He announces and enacts it, and deals with violations and questions about proper behavior and belief in regard to it. We have the whole Scriptures, but they also had Scriptures under the old covenant. They were not sufficiently impressed by what they saw and felt at the mountain of God so as to continue in the covenant. So with the new covenant, Jesus sends His Spirit to dwell in us, to teach us and remind us of the things Jesus taught. We have the record of His Words and deeds and teachings in the New Testament, and with the Spirit in us, we should be more amenable to receiving and understanding and remembering His commands, so that, apparently, through the agency of the Spirit, the commands we read in Scripture and hear about from faithful teachers, these are impressed upon or hearts and minds so thoroughly that we actually continue in them.

Application

So when James says that we should not merely listen to the Word and so deceive ourselves, but do what it says, he means this. He means that we have supernatural assistance to actually obey what God has written for us. We don't need external pressure to obey, if we truly belong to Jesus Christ. We have God Himself dwelling in us to teach and remind us of His will. So it is right to expect and require all who claim to believe in Jesus to walk in the ways recorded for us in the Scriptures. (John agrees with that.) Satan has successfully corrupted the Church's teaching so as to make obedience to the commands of Scripture optional or elective. All that's necessary is that we believe the Gospel, who Jesus is and what He did to redeem us, but we can almost completely ignore the purpose for which He redeemed us: that we would walk in His ways. So if we only embrace the Gospel, but ignore the rest as we see fit, we're no better than the Israelites of old, who didn't continue in God's covenant, whom God came not to care for. If I only receive the Gospel and ignore most of the rest, I too am in danger of being ignored and given up. God saved me to live in newness of life as described and illustrated by the Scriptures; His Spirit is in me to teach and remind me of all these things recorded here. If I do not seek to know and obey all He has for me, I'm in danger of being excluded from the commonwealth of true Israel. I will be lost. So I must not play fast and loose with God's Word; these are the things He saved me to learn and obey and follow.