Law Covenant v. Law of the Spirit (New Covenant)…

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. Hebrews 8:7

Law Covenant, Sinai Commandments, Mosaic Law, ANIMAL-BLOOD SACRIFICE…

The Law Covenant with Israel, nine of the ten Sinai Commandments, the moral portions of the 603 Mosaic Laws, are nothing new or novel but are a reiteration of the Moral Law of Conscience (Romans 2:14-15) possessing some specificity for Israel’s children who were inundated by pagan tribes serving pagan gods relentlessly seeking Israel’s compromise, compromise that would have thwarted or stymied Yahweh’s eschatological plans through His Messiah.

The Law Covenant is performance-based (Deuteronomy 28), compliance-based, relevant to the 10-Sinai Commandments (9-moral, 1-ceremonial law) and the 603-Mosaic Laws, a conglomeration of moral-civil/ceremonial laws.

The Law Covenant’s path to Israel’s righteousness with the Father was predicated upon strict obedience, perfection, to every aspect of the written law and “cursed” was anyone who disobeyed (Deuteronomy 27:26; Deuteronomy 28; Galatians 3:10; James 2:10).

The Law Covenant was Yahweh’s chosen method of demonstrating to Israel’s children and the World that mankind, due to the sin-nature, was absent the moral ability to attain righteousness (a right standing) with the Father through obedience to Laws, ordinances, days, diets; this, as all of humanity is under the condemnation of Adam’s curse (Romans 5:12). The Law Covenant acted as a “tutor” to point Israel’s children to their need for an Intercessor, a Messiah (Galatians 3:24) who could fulfill the righteous mandates of the Law Covenant in perfection as a “Spotless Lamb” while simultaneously fulfilling the blood-atonement mandates of Leviticus 17:11.

The Law Covenant, in part, was destined to be a failure because the Law Covenant sought absolute compliance, obedience, by the sin-nature of man; mankind struggling in the flesh in vanity, pride, arrogance, self-sufficiency, self-righteousness, striving to keep the Law that only defined their sin void atonement (Romans 3:20-23).

The Law Covenant was therefore subject to hypocrisy, subject to subjectivity through aberrant definitions of the Law’s elements that constituted or defined a violation of the Law’s actual intent; intent far too often redefined, obscured, perverted, by sinful men in positions of religious authority over the children of Israel.

Law Covenant – Animal Sacrifices

Animal sacrifices possessed the potential for righteousness (a right standing) with the Yahweh. Blood sacrifices were ordained in the Law Covenant as a temporary covering for personal and national sins but could never provide lasting, enduring, atonement as the blood of animals could never take away sin (Hebrews 10:4), but the “faith” of the one who offered the sacrifice was pleasing to Yahweh and our Lord credited that faith as righteousness as the one offering the sacrifice “believed” what Yahweh had promised (Leviticus 17:11) and their belief-faith justified them and prepared them a place in Sheol-Paradise, a temporary abode for the righteous souls awaiting the acceptable blood atonement of Messiah who was promised to come through the Tribe of Judah.

Law of the Spirit, the New Covenant established in Messiah’s blood (Matthew 26:28)

The New Covenant, established in the sinless blood of Jesus Christ (Matthew 26:28), is based upon grace (unmerited favor unattainable through human effort – a divine Gift) through faith (trust-belief) in Jesus Christ as Messiah, believing that Jesus died in our place to pay our sin-debt owed the Father and by covenant promise, the Father agrees to forgive-forget our sin, forever (Hebrews 8:12) and in exchange for our sin – in place of our sin, the Father imputes-gifts the perfection-righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ, into and over our life, forever (2 Corinthians 5:21); additionally, the Father, in accordance with covenant promise (Ezekiel 36:27; John 14:16-17; Ephesians 1:13-14; John 3), Gifts the redeemed with the indwelling Holy Spirit who takes-up residence within the faithful in Jesus and it is the Holy Spirit who provides the redeemed with a “new nature,” a New Creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), that wars against, battles against, seeks to resist, the sin-nature inherited from our father Adam (Galatians 5:16).

It is the indwelling Holy Spirit who anoints the redeemed in Jesus as spiritual warriors (Ephesians 6:10-20) through the daily process of sanctification where the Holy Spirit employs the “conscience” of the faithful in Jesus and walks them methodically in the Father’s will as the Spirit prepares the redeemed for an eternity of service to Jesus Christ in the New Jerusalem (John 14:26; 1 John 2:27).

Law of the Spirit – superior to the Law Covenant,

The Holy Spirit, via the conscience, guides the redeemed in Jesus Christ in the Father’s will and the Christian who is led by the Spirit does not walk daily concerned about laws, edicts, days, food…they listen to the Spirit via the conscience (Romans 7:6) and they are therefore led, methodically, to walk in righteousness in every aspect of life; even those most minute controversial subjects not addressed by commandments, edicts, ordinances, are discerned through the Spirit’s anointing (Galatians 5:16).

Through sanctification, the Holy Spirit’s discernment is provided instantaneously and the Spirit’s interceding wisdom is an infinitely superior, efficient, form of behavioral modification than cognitively attempting to discern a written law, its subjective elements, its applicability, its relevance, in any given circumstance in life; the Spirit’s discernment via the redeemed conscience is provided in a timely, relevant, God honoring fashion; therefore, the success of the New Covenant is based upon,

1) the Father’s grace through one’s faith in His Son (John 3:16);

2) the imputed righteousness of Jesus into the life of the redeemed resulting in an eternal adjudication of “not guilty” (2 Corinthians 5:21);

3) the gift of a “new creation” that is anointed and prepared to war against the sin-nature (2 Corinthians 5:17) and finally, and most importantly,

4) the Gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14) who becomes our best friend in Time and Eternity as He sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24) and loves us unconditionally as He prepares God’s children for honorable service in the New Jerusalem where we will abide with and intimately commune with Jesus in Elohim, subsequent the resurrection, forever.

Life in the Spirit,

8 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8 (ESV)