Hebrews 8:13 “In that He says, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”
In order for us to have a clearer understanding of how God leads His children under the new covenant, we need to examine how God led His servants under the old covenant. By showing the difference between the two covenants (for they are different), we can avoid making the mistake of trying to apply old covenant practices under the new. The reason for that is because not all old covenant practices will work under the new covenant, for as revealed to us in the above quoted passage of scripture, those practices have been made obsolete.
1 Peter 3:18-19 “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, (19) by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison.”
Under the old covenant no one could be born-again. Even those who believed God and had their faith accounted to them for righteousness, were still spiritually dead people. From Able, all the way through to John the Baptist and including the disciples of the Lord Jesus (before Jesus had gone to the cross), they were all spiritually dead. And so as believers, their faith was accounted to them for righteousness (Romans 4:3), but none of them could yet be made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, for Jesus had not yet been made sin with their sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). Through their faith, God was able to account or promise righteousness to them. In other words they had the promise of God that they would one day be made righteous, but that day would only come after Jesus was raised from the dead. That is why Jesus had to go and preach the gospel to all the old covenant saints who had died and were waiting in Abraham’s bosom (1 Peter 4:6). Under the new covenant we are born-again, and so when we die we go straight to heaven to be with the Lord Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:8). Old covenant saints were not yet born-again and so could not enter heaven when they died. In the above quoted passage of scripture we can see that after Jesus was raised from the dead, He went into Abraham’s bosom to preach the gospel to them so that they could believe in Him, confess Him as Lord and become born-again. After Jesus had preached the gospel to them and they were born-again, i.e. their spirits were made alive; they were then able to ascend with Him into heaven for the very first time (Ephesians 4:8).
John 14:16-17 “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever-- (17) the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”
Because all old covenant saints were spiritually dead, the Holy Spirit could not reside in their spirits. Even those, whom the Lord called to stand in various offices and anointed to stand in those offices, could not have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of them. Those whom the Lord anointed under the old covenant had the Holy Spirit come upon them, but never in them to reside in their spirits. Notice in the above quoted passage of scripture that those whom our Lord Jesus had called as apostles, had the Holy Spirit dwelling with them. In other words He was upon them, but He was not yet in them. Jesus said that He would be in them in the future, after Jesus had been raised from the dead and they could believe in Him and thus be born-again. Once they were born-again their spirits would be made alive and only then could the Holy Spirit take up residence inside their spirits. And so we see that because under the old covenant the Holy Spirit could not reside in the spirits of any of the believers, the vast majority of the believers had absolutely no contact with the Holy Spirit at all. They knew nothing about Him. I have mentioned that the Holy Spirit would come upon certain individuals to anoint them to stand in certain offices. Those individuals were the king, the prophet and the priest. These were the only individuals under the old covenant who had any contact with the Holy Spirit.
Michael E.B. Maher
Comments