13. Two Covenants

Covering Galatians Chapters 3-4:

The choice between two which God placed before humans in the garden continues all through the Bible until today, and stands before every human alive. Two trees, two covenants, two gospels, two minds.

In actuality, these are simply four ways of depicting the story of self inside our souls by which we know ourselves and by which we define everything. These four Biblical pairs are not four different kinds of choice, but rather four ways of understanding one choice. The Tree of Life, the New Covenant, Paul’s Gospel, and the mind of the Spirit are four ways to understand one of the two choices. And the tree of death, the old covenant, another gospel, and the mind of the flesh depict the other choice.

A Simple Choice. Adam’s choice came with no prior history, yet it was hard and cold, for Adam was not deceived. Our choice, which we face daily and moment by moment, contains the memory of sin. It all sounds complicated, but its actually immensely simple. In every moment, it’s “Jesus, You are with me,” OR, “I’m doing okay myself.” It’s a question of source, of purpose, of companionship, and of seeing. Paul focused his concern on the last, that of seeing.

You see, we are not addressing the unregenerate, but our fellow believers in Jesus. We know that Jesus lives inside the hearts of possibly at least a third of all who are called Christians. Yet they cannot see what that means. It seems to us that someone has cast a spell upon them.

The Great Issue. (Chapter 3) • 1 Oh foolish and thoughtless Galatians! Who has placed a spell on you, that you should not have full confidence in the truth, when, before your eyes, Jesus Christ was depicted as having been crucified? 2 I wish to learn this from you – did you receive the Spirit out of works of law or out from hearing with faith? 3 You are so foolish! Having begun in Spirit, are you now accomplishing completion in flesh [by human ability and effort]?

Paul is not setting up a debate over ideas, and our task is not to find the right ideas. Paul is setting before all the GREAT ISSUE, and that issue includes what we see, yes, but even more, HOW we see, and it includes an enemy whose primary ability can be understood as the ability to cast a spell upon human thinking, that is, to confuse the issue.

What We See. The normal Christian mind is “full confidence in the Truth.” And this mind, this way of thinking comes from what we SEE. We see Jesus, and we see Him already crucified. We KNOW what “already crucified” means, for we have spoken Christ through Galatians 2:20. That is, we know that what we see means two critical things. First it means that the old is GONE! And second it means that “Jesus loves me.” How can anyone not be impacted by a man who gives his life upon the cross just for me? Then, as we are fixated in this CLEAR seeing, the spell is broken, for it never had any real power. Now, Jesus Sent into us can show us the Father.

We saw clearly how everything in Chapters 1-2 was for Galatians 2:20, but why does Paul go immediately from Galatians 2:20 to the casting of a spell?

Casting the Spell. The serpent used Bible verses to cast his spell, and he invited Eve to a Bible study. “Did God say this? Did God say that? What do you think God meant by what He said?” When Eve gave answer, she was already under the serpent’s spell, for she was deceived, that is, her mind was confused and she could not see what was really happening.

All our Christian lives we have been under that spell, and it comes to us with so many different whispers, issues designed exactly to fit our own personal confusion. Yet two things that are the same in clouding the minds of all are sin and the law. And for his work, the spell caster has so much material, for God’s word says so much about both. But “Let’s have a Bible study” always means, “Don’t see Jesus.”

How We See. The argument of the Old Covenant grips the attention of everyone on earth right now today. The “doctrine” of the Pharisees who control the issue is to argue the Old Covenant. How is it that we are not subject to that same great spell? It’s not really what we see, for who can argue over a man who loves me so much that he gives his life for me?

We are not subject to the spell anymore, we stand firmly in confidence in the Truth, because of HOW we see. We SEE through the Promise of the Spirit. The issue is not Bible verses; the issue is LIFE. And it is the Spirit that gives Life.

Life: It is the Spirit that gives Life (see John 6:63). We receive the Spirit through faith because we are convinced of the Truth, for the Spirit causes us to see Christ crucified – our sins already gone, and this One who “loves me.”

How We Hear. • 5 Listen, the One who continuously and lavishly supplies the Spirit to you, who continuously and actively energeoes power inside of and among you, is it out of works of law or out from hearing with faith? • 6 In the same way, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned, counted, and credited to him into just approval. 7 You know that those who are out from faith, these are sons of Abraham. 

Seeing and hearing are two parts of the same meaning. And both of them reference exactly that which comes into us to become our story of self. God does not provide us with a video of Jesus on the cross; thus, even what we see comes to us only through words. And thus the question of the Spirit is how we hear. And the effect is the energeoing of power inside our souls.

Deliverance from Evil. Understand this. The unveiling of Jesus Christ, the Apocalypse, is deliverance from an EVIL spell, cast not upon the world, but upon Christians. And this fact is inherent all through Paul’s teaching and Gospel, and John’s as well.

A spell is “to see” what does not exist and “to know” what is not true. A spell is paper-thin, a mist, and it has no substance. The Spirit given to us is something entirely different. The difference between the Spirit and the spell is the difference between God-All and nothing. And so Paul’s purpose is not “to discuss” the two covenants, but to bring the Spirit energeoing inside of us immediately out from Galatians 2:20.

Ruling Verse 5: The Spirit energeoing Life inside of us comes immediately out from Galatians 2:20.

Covenant: Any relationship with God begins with a full-on confidence and assertion that He is always telling us the Truth in the Gospel.

NOT an Argument. • 8 More than that, the Scripture, having foreseen that God declares the ethnic families to be justly innocent out from faith, foretold the gospel to Abraham saying, “All the ethnic families will be blessed, [will have the good things of Christ spoken into them] inside of you,” 9 So then, those out from faith are blessed, together with believing Abraham.

Now, the preachers who had cast a spell on the Galatian Christians were Pharisees who, although they had received Jesus, still, they refused to turn from their story of self that was all “arguing over law.” As Paul will assert, they had no thought of “keeping” the law, for the serpent says, “Argue.” Thus we understand that Paul is not “arguing” one covenant against the other, but rather, he is bringing the Scriptures into the mind of the Spirit for the sake of all Christians.

Our Story of Self. Paul comes straight out from Galatians 2:20 into this contest between the spellcaster and the Spirit. We can understand the rest of Galatians only when we KNOW Galatians 2:20 and when we know the meaning of the Spirit. The Spirit writes the Words that are God upon our hearts of flesh, words that are living and energeoing, words that are Life. And we know those Words as Life by the Spirit.

The word “to bless” is the Greek eulogeó, to speak good words. God really is talking about our story of self.

Speak Christ: The spellcaster teaches to argue over Scripture with the intellect; the Spirit writes all Word as Jesus upon our hearts (see 2 Corinthians 3:3). These are two opposing stories of self. “To be blessed” is to have the good words of Christ spoken into us that our story of self might be Christ Jesus.

The Law Is Meant to Kill. 10 For all who are out of works of law are under curse… “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them.” • 11 And it is even more evident that inside of law no one is declared to be justly innocent in the presence of God because “those who are justly innocent live out from faith.” 12 The law is not out of faith; rather “the one who does these things [human performance] will live inside of that doing.”

By the law is the knowledge of sin, that is, of good and evil. The law is not a self-help program. The law is a killer, and its purpose is to execute. To “do” the law is to live by self, by “Me, helping myself.” To “eat” of the law is to die. Faith is something entirely different, and faith is horrifically mis-defined inside Nicene Christianity.

Seeing God, not Self. Death is not knowing God. We know God ONLY through Jesus Sent into us. No one did the law better than Saul of Tarsus, and it made him an annihilator of God. Faith is a quality of the human spirit, now one with the Devoted Spirit, that connects directly and immediately with Jesus, first in Person, and second, as each specific Word God speaks. Faith pre-supposes the ability to bring forth Life. The “life” produced by the law is fakery, the spinning of endless stories of self around the refusal of Jesus.

Covenant: The old covenant and the law serve one purpose only, to show absolute failure, that all might be brought to death through the Cross. You do NOT obey! To come alive inside of Jesus, we must first be declared justly innocent by God. Faith sees God; human performance sees only the curse.

Brought to Honesty. • 13 Christ redeemed us out of the curse of law, having become curse for us, for our sakes… “Cursed is everyone hanging on a tree.” 14 This is so that the blessing given to Abraham might become inside the ethnic families inside of Jesus Christ, that we might receive the PROMISE of Spirit into ourselves all the way through our faith.

God’s hope in imposing law, because of Adam’s choice to spin his own story of self, is to bring at least some humans to honesty. Honesty is very hard to find. “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them.” If Life is the knowledge of God, as Jesus said, then to be cursed is to be barred from receiving the knowledge of God.

The Passageway of Faith. The category for this bullet point is Life, that is, the Promise of Spirit coming through faith. Yet we are also defining faith; thus this Truth is best served by adding a definition of faith. God made us to be filled with all the fulness of God and to reveal God as Love to all creation. The qualities of our design to fulfill that purpose are beyond comprehension. The passageway of God into us is FAITH. And through faith comes the Spirit first, that we might receive Jesus in Person and as Word, that Jesus might then show us the Father, third.

I have heard these words. “God would not have given us the law if He did not mean for us to keep it (that is, live by it).” Some even argue that God gave the tree of death intending us to eat of it that we might become “gods” ourselves.

“I Need Jesus.” Do you see the vast dishonesty in the one who argues, “God intends for me to keep the law.” Such a one is never bothered by the fact that they DO NOT, that all they have is argument, that is, a story of self absent of God. Paul is not arguing “law versus grace.” He is bringing a mighty hammer blow down upon your dishonesty in the great HOPE that he might bring you into needing JESUS!

Life: Life is human thinking FILLED with the Spirit of God. Paul asserts that the Spirit becoming part of our humanity that we might know God is the PROMISE God gave Abraham.

Definition: Faith begins with honesty. “I am without hope; I NEED Jesus.” Then faith is the channel of receiving. Faith receives the Promise of Spirit, and then, by Spirit, faith receives the blessing, every good Word that Jesus speaks.

A Covenant of Promise. • 15 Listen brothers and sisters, let me speak by human thought. Even with a covenant that has been ratified by men, made valid and signed, no one sets any part of it aside or adds anything to it. 16 You see, the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his sperm. He does not say, and to many sperm, but of One, “And to your Sperm,” who is Christ. 17 Yet I say even more than that; this covenant was confirmed, made valid and signed out from God, then, – 430 years later comes the law – that law does not annul or invalidate the original promise. 15 If indeed the inheritance is out of law, it is no longer out from promise, but God gave it to Abraham through promise.

The Covenant God made with Abraham was the New Covenant. The New Covenant, already glorified, comes first.

Fixed Forever. Now, everything in Galatians 3 is intended to take us to 3:26-29 which is a full return to, and a vast explosion out from, Galatians 2:20, our union with a Jesus who loves us. More than that, we must know that Paul thinks always out from 2 Corinthians Chapter 3, Jesus in Person written on our hearts as every Word God speaks, and we being made just like Him as we see Him in one another. Paul is contrasting between Abraham and Moses (in his outward office) in order to make the Covenant clear to us.

Covenant: The Covenant, the relationship we have with God through Jesus, is of immense importance. That Covenant is a Word of Promise spoken by God, not just to Abraham, but also to the Lord Jesus Christ, the One Heir of Abraham. This Promise is fixed forever.

The Mediator. • 19 Why then the law? It was set forth and arranged through angels in the hands of a mediator [Moses] on account of contrary actions, of over-stepping the boundaries, of deviation – UNTIL the Sperm to whom the promise was made should come. 20 Now, a mediator is not for one person, but God is One.

A mediator is one who goes between two in order to resolve all differences that the two might walk together as one. What people just don’t get, those who “study” the Bible, is that the Tree of Life was also in the garden, that is, Jesus as the ONLY connection with God. The law, knowing right and wrong, makes SELF to be the mediator between self and God, as Paul quoted from Leviticus, to do law is to live by self. To ignore Jesus is to EXALT self.

Defining Our Mediator. The Gospel Comments must reflect the full meaning of Paul’s contention with the Galatian Christians, and their full deliverance from the spell-caster.

Covenant: God requires all contrary actions, all deviations, all false stories of self to acknowledge the absolute finality of the Cross. A relationship with God begins with honesty. The death of the Cross cannot save anyone, however, but only the LIFE of the One to whom God made the Promise (see Romans 5:10). Only a Mediator can connect us with God. Only the entrance of Promise can save us from the false story.

Definition: A mediator is one who goes between two in order to resolve all differences that the two might walk together as one. Our Covenant is with God, a Covenant of togetherness; Jesus is the Mediator of that Covenant.

Defining Law and Promise. • 21 Is the law then against the promises of God? It cannot be! If any law ever given was able or had the power to bring forth life, then indeed, just approval and innocence would have emerged out of law. 22 The Scriptures then enclosed and imprisoned all under falling absolutely short of God SO THAT the promise out from the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe and are persuaded. • 23 More than that, before faith came to us, we were held captive as prisoners, having been imprisoned under law, until the about-to-be unveiled faith. 24 So, the law has become our trainer into Christ so that we might be declared justly innocent out from faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are NO LONGER under a trainer.

We need two definitions: law and promise.

Seeking Life or Death. It is the false definition of “promise” that turns all this into confusion, thus allowing a false definition of law to continue. The evil definition of “promise” that perverts everything of the Gospel is this. “Jesus (correct ideas about) is the only way (ticket) to heaven (someday).”

The most important definition of the law is found in Galatians 3:22. – No law can give Life. The most important definition of the Promise of Spirit is John 6:63. – It is the Spirit that gives Life. Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures looking for Life, but you will not come to Me that you might have Life” (John 5). Those who seek death turn to their own ability to hear and obey God. Those who seek Life come to Jesus. It’s that simple.

Law versus Spirit. Definition: The law versus the Promise of Spirit; these are both covenants, that is, the goal is always connection with God. The most important fact of law is “no law can give Life” (see Galatians 3:22). The most important fact of Spirit is “it is the Spirit that gives Life” (see John 6:63). Life is knowing God (see John 17:3). The mediator of law is self, self doing, human performance imagining a “connection” with God. The one who says, “I will do what God says,” is lying, and thus, by the law, is executed immediately without hope (the Cross – Galatians 2:20). The Promise of Spirit is the pathway for Jesus into us, Jesus to be written upon our hearts as every Word God speaks, Jesus our Life and our All-Connection with God. Only through Jesus Sent into us can we know the Father and LIVE! To trust in self-doing is death; to live by Spirit is Life.

Galatians 2:20 Again. • 26 For all of you are sons of God all the way through faith inside of Christ Jesus. • 27 Indeed, those who were utterly immersed into Christ, you have already put Christ upon yourselves. 28 …INDEED, all of you are ONE inside of Christ Jesus. • 29 And even more than that, if you are of Christ, then you are Abraham’s SPERM (singular) and heirs according to Promise.

This is simply an explosion coming out from Galatians 2:20. First, a son is one who boldly acknowledges a full entrance into all that is God, through Jesus, and thus apprehends everything of God given to us in full assurance of faith. Then, we are able to put Jesus upon ourselves through faith only because we already have, thus Ruling Verse 10 is always coming out from Galatians 2:20.

The Promised Heir. Then, verses 28-29 contain a primary definition of Covenant.

Ruling Verse 6: To be a son of God is to be one who boldly proclaims, “I have already entered into all that is God through the Way that is Christ Jesus.” To be a son is to apprehend all that is God given to us, through full assurance of faith.

Ruling Verse 5: Every action of faith in knowing God, in living life, and in loving one another comes only out from Galatians 2:20, out from a Jesus who has already come into union with us inside the protection of the Cross. Jesus has already enclothed us with Himself.

Covenant: And Jesus has already connected us fully with God and has already made us one together inside of Himself. Inside of Jesus, we are the Promise given to Abraham; we are the Promised Heir.  

The Fulness of Time. (Chapter 4) • 4 When the fullness of the time had come, however, God commissioned and sent forth His Son, becoming out from a woman, becoming under the law, 5 so that He might rescue [out of the marketplace] those under law, that we might actively receive placement as sons.

Kingdom is always coming out from Covenant. There is never any point of Covenant that does not have Kingdom flowing immediately out from it. And there is never any point of Kingdom that is not flowing immediately out from Covenant. Word and Spirit are always together. The “fulness of time” MEANS “Salvation now come” (see Revelation 12:10). To live by law is to live by self. It is to be cursed, that is, speaking against and spoken against, first, and to be executed without hope or appeal second.

Living out from God. It’s a very simple thing. If we don’t get Help, we are toast. And Help is another name for Jesus.

Paul is coming straight out of Galatians 3:26-29, which is a second expression of Galatians 2:20. In those verses he has established us as being the One Seed that is Christ, and thus personally heirs of Abraham according to Promise, which is Covenant. Thus he is now turning to Kingdom. To be PLACED as sons is to be placed into God, to live always with and out from God. By Kingdom, then, Jesus is our Pattern.

Kingdom: Having rescued us out from the delusion of self imagining a connection with God through NOT keeping the law, Jesus then placed us already as sons fully into God as our Life. Thus every step of our lives, every next moment, we live only with God and out from Him.

The Spirit of His Son. • 6 And BECAUSE you are sons, God commissioned and sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying loudly, “My Daddy, the Father!” For that reason, you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if you are now a son, then you are also an heir through God. • 19 My children, for whom I travail in birth again until Christ shall have been formed inside of you.

There is so much in these two verses so far beyond the scope of this lesson, beyond the scope of any short comments we could write. These two verses are at the heart of the next letter I am now writing for Being a Witness of Christ, titled “Becoming Intercession.”

The Spirit in my heart is ME – saying, “My Daddy, the Father!”

Being a Son of God. Elsewhere Paul said, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” That means that Galatians 4:19 is also describing us as sons. What does it mean to be a son of God? I had not realized how much Paul’s layout in Galatians raises that exact question. – I have the RIGHT to be a son birthed out from God (John 1:12). What is it that I must seize hold of? What am I?

Definition: There are two parts to being a son of God, first conception (Covenant) and second practice (Kingdom). Our conception begins with Spirit becoming part of us that we might receive Jesus as the One Sperm of God, now written upon our hearts. Our practice is being the intercession of God by that same Spirit (see Romans 8:26-27), for the sake of our Christian brethren (Galatians 4:19). In-between, by Spirit, we speak, “My Daddy, the Father,” even as we apprehend with full assurance of faith everything of God given to us.

These Are Two Covenants. • 21 TELL ME, you who want to be under law, why don’t you listen to the law? Indeed, it is written that Abraham had two sons; one out from a slave woman and one out from a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave woman was conceived according to the flesh; while the son of the free woman was conceived through the promise. • 24 These things are to be allegorized; for these are two covenants, one from Mount Sinai into the procreation of slavery, which is Hagar. 25 More than that, this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia which corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem. She is indeed in slavery with her children. 26 Whereas the Jerusalem from above is free, who is OUR mother.

All who teach law and the old covenant do NOT pay attention to the law. They simply refuse to hear what the law says.

Two Covenants. To be “under law” is to be under slavery to the psychotic delusion cast by the spell-caster (let’s have a ‘Bible study’) that your own self-performance will connect you with God. There are two covenants, the old and the New. The difference between the two is staggering, the difference between death and age-unfolding Life. Sarah represents the Church, the New Jerusalem, our mother. Natural Israel and natural Jerusalem are found only in slavery and death.

Covenant: Every believer in Jesus must reckon with the great contradiction between the two covenants, the old and the New. The old is for slavery and death; the New is for Life. The Church as the fulness of Christ (see Ephesians 1:23), the New Jerusalem always coming out from God, is our mother. We are being formed as sons in the womb of the Church.

Of the Free Woman. • “CAST OUT the slave woman and her son; for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit along with the son of the free woman.” 31 So then, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but we are children of the free woman.

Here is a description of the Church, our mother. The Church, which is [Jesus’] body, the fulness of Christ who fills all inside of all (Ephesians 1:23). The Church is the heavenly woman, New Jerusalem, coming out from God every moment. The entire world is fixated in fear right now on the children of the slave woman who demand by insane violence that the entire inheritance belongs only to them. The Gospel, Paul’s Gospel, demands that we cast out that false claim.

The Inheritance. The doctrine of the Pharisees (the Talmud) insists that all other ethnic families (Gentiles) are human-like animals and must either become slaves or be slaughtered. The hatred against Christians is greater than against any other. These requirements have already been signed into law worldwide. We will not here describe our true inheritance as sons of God and heirs of Abraham, but the inheritance is Kingdom. The showdown is between those who hate and those who are the Intercession of God for the sake of all (see Galatians 4:19).

Kingdom: The whole world is fixated in fear right now over the false claim to the inheritance. The Gospel commands us to cast out that false claim, for only believers in Jesus are the Heir of Abraham. Yet our great weapon is our Travail for the sake of our brethren (see Galatians 4:19), for our Jerusalem is the Church.

Becoming Intercession. The Gospel does not allow us to escape this great war that is happening right now upon the earth. Indeed, this contradiction of the inheritance actually fills the New Testament. Yet Paul has already described, in 2 Corinthians 10, the weapons of our warfare, which are not of this world. In fact, Galatians 4:19, our travail for the sake of our brethren, that Christ might be formed inside of them, is our greatest weapon.

Just as Christ Jesus having entered into union with us is deeply personal for Him and for us, so is our becoming the Intercession of God also deeply personal, for Jesus, for us, and for every member of that heavenly woman. We are speaking of the Victory of Life over death and the immanent resurrection of our physical bodies.