It Is the Kingdom of Grace — The Principles of This Kingdom — It Was Made and Confirmed with Israel — Its Acceptance Voluntary
In his two preceding articles, Elder Porter has presented the old covenant kingdom and its relations to the new.
In this paper and the next, he presents the great principles that underlie the new covenant kingdom, and the manner in which this kingdom of grace is preparing subjects for the kingdom of glory bestowed upon the redeemed at the second coming of Christ. EDITOR.
CHRIST came to ratify the new covenant kingdom, which was established in Eden before the fall, and reestablished with Israel at Sinai. His first advent was in fulfilment of prophecy. The prophets had testified beforehand "of the grace that should come unto you," of "the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." 1 Peter 1:10, 11.
SOME PRINCIPLES OF THE NEW COVENANT
Before ratifying the new covenant, Christ must make plain the principles of the new covenant kingdom. He came to reveal to the world that it was possible, through the provision made for pardon and righteousness, to live as sinless on earth since the fall as before. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom. 5:20, 21. "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets." Rom. 3:21.
Christ's life of faith was an absolutely perfect reproduction of the law of the kingdom of God as proclaimed from Sinai. The law and His life were one. He lived the law of God perfectly, because by faith it was implanted in His heart. "Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart." Ps. 40:7, 8.
A life of obedience to the law spoken from Sinai was lived by faith during the worldly sanctuary ministration. Christ's perfect life was the seal of God's testimony that such a life had been possible through faith since the days of Adam.
THE NEW COVENANT PROPOSAL
God's purpose in the new covenant kingdom was to restore man to his original relations. Christ had demonstrated, by His life, that by faith the law of the Edenic kingdom of God, as proclaimed from Sinai, may be implanted in the heart. And when it is so implanted, one will delight to obey it. It will not then be regarded as a yoke of bondage. Unbelief had cast that odium upon it.
Christ, having disproved that satanic slander against the law of the kingdom of God, by a life of liberty free from the slightest taint of bondage, announced that the same law should be reestablished in the heart by the new covenant kingdom. He further declared that instead of its being a yoke of bondage, it was a law of liberty when lived by faith. James 2:12.
Having tested it, He said, "For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." Matt. 11:30. The new covenant proposal was: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which My covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Jer. 31:31-34.
TO RESTORE THE SINNER
The new covenant kingdom was established to restore the sinner to obedience to the law of the kingdom of God, taking the world in sin, and restoring it to obedience according to the requirements of the law of the old covenant kingdom — the kingdom of glory. It began with a world in sin and unbelief. Its conditions were faith, which produced obedience.
God purposed to do all that was promised in the making of the covenant, on conditions of faith. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Mark 16:16. The test of the genuineness of the faith was whether or not every precept of the Sinaitic law of the kingdom had been implanted in the heart of the believer. If he offended in one point, he was an unbeliever, and had failed in all. James 2:10. There was but one pathway for the acceptable child of faith. "For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." 1 Peter 2:21, 22.
The conditions of the new covenant kingdom are as plainly stated as are those of the old. The new covenant declared that the repentant sinner was entirely free from sin, which, through faith in the atonement of its sin-offering, should be remembered against him no more. These were the better promises, upon which He would establish a better covenant. Heb. 8:6. Only children of obedience could enter the old covenant relation. Only children of faith, which produced obedience, could enter the new covenant relation.
THE NEW COVENANT MADE AND CONFIRMED WITH ISRAEL
In promising the new covenant, the Lord said He would make it "with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah." "And He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week He shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations He shall make it desolate." Dan. 9:27.
This was a prophetic week, each day representing a year. Therefore for seven years Christ confirmed the covenant with Israel and Judah. After three and a half years from His anointing as the Messiah at His baptism, by His death, as the antitype of all sacrificial offerings, He caused all sacrifices foreshadowing His offering to cease. "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." Col. 2:14-17.
Thus He showed openly at the cross that the Jewish ritual, or sacrificial system of pardon, which prefigured His death, ended. The ritual Passover and wave-offering sabbaths, prefiguring Christ, ceased by limitation when "Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us"; and by rising from the dead, He became "the first-fruits of them that slept." But this was in the midst of the forementioned prophetic week.
THE FULL SEVEN YEARS WAS USED
That the full seven years was devoted to the confirmation of the new covenant kingdom with Israel, is plainly seen in Christ's instruction to His disciples. "These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Matt. 10:5, 6. As in the old covenant dispensation, their message was restoration through the gospel of the kingdom of God. "And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Verse 7.
At the end of the seven years allotted for the confirmation of the new covenant with Israel and Judah, the gospel was carried to the Gentiles. "Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." Acts 13:46.
NOT SAVED BY NATIONS
They were not to be saved by nations, but as individuals. "Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him." Acts 10:34, 35. He was to take out from among the Gentiles all children of faith. "Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name." Acts 15:14.
The new covenant was not made with the Gentiles. They were grafted in by belief. Rom. 11:11-29. Both the old and the new covenant, therefore, were made with Israel. Rom. 9:4. Only the children of promise were counted as the seed. Verse 8. Thus all Christians are counted as Israelites, since they will enter the holy city under the names of the twelve tribes. Rev. 21:12.395
ACCEPTANCE OF THE NEW COVENANT VOLUNTARY
As loyalty to the old covenant kingdom was voluntary, so entrance into the new covenant kingdom is voluntary. Adam and all his posterity had the privilege of entering the new covenant kingdom. The call to them was without coercion. It was infinite love making an appeal to all who had fallen under sin, to enter the new covenant relations under the leadership of Christ, its divine Mediator. To accept or reject the call was left optional.
Why were some broken off? "Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee." Rom. 11:20, 21.
The call to enter the new covenant kingdom was a call to faith. It was a call to a faith which would maintain that God would do for one all that He had promised. Faith is an inward experience, not an outward form. It is manifested in voluntary obedience, not in enforced, formal observance.
Being an inward experience, it can not be enforced. To undertake to enforce acceptance of the new covenant experience, is to advertise to the world that one is without experience in the doctrine he seeks to establish. Every child of faith knows that in its very nature faith is voluntary and can not be enforced.
A MINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT
The new covenant was a ministration of the Spirit. "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." 2 Cor. 3:6. The purpose of the new covenant kingdom was to restore righteousness and life, leaving the final execution of impenitents to the kingdom of glory when it should be finally established through the reign of grace.
Christ came not to condemn, but to save. John 3:16, 17. The old covenant required either obedience from the heart, or death. The new covenant required righteousness as a gift from God through faith. The same obedience was required, but it was not the mission of the new covenant to inflict death penalties. Christ as Mediator, having accepted the death penalty for all, ministered the Spirit, and established righteousness. The infliction of the penalty of death, called the "second death," and which is eternal, was deferred until the end of the reign of grace. R. C. P.
