Thursday, April 18, 2013

OUR COVENANT OF FAITH, PART 1


Our Covenant of Faith


Under the old covenant, whenever the people made sacrifice, they put their faith in the sacrifice to cover them at the time.  Under the Levitical Priesthood, they had many different sacrifices for many different things.  Under the Levitical Priesthood, when an offering was made and accepted, the person or persons would be cleansed of whatever the sin or trespass had been.  Each time the sacrifice was made, the person was cleansed until the next time he did something wrong.  If you had faith in the sacrifice, you could walk away and be accepted by the Lord as covered by the life (“the life is in the blood’, Lev 17:11-14 Amp) of the sacrifice.  There were laws for trespasses, laws for sin, laws for purification, etc.  Each time a different sacrifice was made for a different transgression.  By placing your faith in what God had declared for sacrifice, you could still walk free of the curse that would come by transgressing the law.  Always, you must have faith in what you did in the sacrifice.  They put their faith in the law, but always there was another sacrifice to be made because the blood of bulls and goats could not take away the sin (Hebrews 10:3-4).  Even the High Priest had to offer a sacrifice for himself before he could enter into the presence of God (Heb 7:27).  Each day, there was a daily sacrifice made for the High Priest and then for the people.

Each person had to have a sacrifice for his personal trespass and the High Priest had to have even for himself.  In the book of Job, you will find that Job was always offering sacrifice for his sons and daughters for fear of them doing something wrong against God (Job 1:4-5), thus did Job at all such times.  Job never had faith in the blood of the sacrifice he had just made, and so he kept making them (Job 3:25-26), “I was not or am not at ease, nor had I or have I rest”.  Without the faith in what he was doing, he negated the power of his sacrifice and had no peace in it.

We have a covenant with God that is totally based on our faith in the sacrifice that was made for us.  We can only receive from our new covenant what we have faith for it to cover.  It has already been provided, but it still must be received by our faith.  Hebrews 11:6 Amp, without faith, it is impossible to please God.

All through the four Gospels, you find Jesus talking to His disciples about faith (“if you had faith”, “ye of little faith”, “where is your faith?”).  Always it was a statement to do with their faith.  Starting in Romans and going all the way through the rest of the epistles, you never heard these statements made.  The reason is because He is talking to the church, “without faith, you can’t be a part of the church”.  Romans 10:9-10, vs 10 Amp, declares openly and speaks out freely His faith and confirms His salvation.  Also in Romans 1:17 Amp, concerning your faith, it says that the righteousness that God ascribed is revealed from faith, leading to more faith, disclosed through the way of faith that arouses to move faith, as it is written, “the man who through faith is just and upright shall live and shall live by faith.” 

Everything the Christian lives by is his faith in the blood and the sacrifice of the Lamb of God.  Even though it has all been covered by the sacrifice, it must be appropriated by his faith in that sacrifice.  Does that mean that the sacrifice left something out? NO!  But you must use the faith of Romans 1:7 to continue in the faith as it is revealed.

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