DNA part 2
There's old and there's new. (Even though, really, "new" is just a return to the original.) The Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The blood that is the life of the flesh, and the blood of the Lamb that is eternal life. Jesus said it like this, "For this is my blood of the new testament, which is she for many for the remission of sins" (Matthew 26:28). The blood OF the new testament. The blood that IS the New Covenant! And catch the truth of why Jesus shed His blood for us. Why He gave His life for us and gave His life to us: For the remission of sins. He didn't come to make "evil" people "good." He came to make dead people alive. Before the cross we were in bondage to sin and death. And no matter how hard we tried, or how many external rules or laws we (tried and failed to) follow... we couldn't do anything about it. We were in need of a Savior. A New Covenant. On that didn't condemn us, but one that affirmed us, and empowered us. The biggest problem with the Law of Moses is that it demanded perfection without being able to produce perfection. It set the standard too high and we couldn't reach it. Not even Moses himself, the mediator of that Old Covenant, made it into the Promised Land on his own merit. It wasn't until Moses died--the old passed away--and Joshua (type and shadow of Jesus) came forth that the people could enter into God's rest. What am I saying? Jesus came to save us from our SINS. From unbelief. From the lie that said we had to do in order to be. Look at Hebrews 10:16-17 (and remember that Jesus' blood IS the New Covenant). "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And ther sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Jesus shed His blood for the remission of sins. So that the old could pass away. So that--through the circumcision of the heart that was made without hands--God's heart might be revealed in our chests. He put His laws into our HEART. The perfect law of liberty. The New Commandment that says, "Love one another as Jesus loves you." And He didn't just put the laws there, He also put the ability to OBEY the laws there. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). He put the want to, and the can do, into our hearts. No more are we struggling under the Law--doing what we hate, and hating what we do, and never able to do what we actually WANT to do. Because the blood that was shed for us now flows through our veins. No longer are we in bondage to sin and death. There is life in the blood, and in HIS blood there is abundant, eternal, everlasting, Resurrection Life! Sin can't hold us down anymore. Because Jesus took it away. And forgave it. And forgot it. He saved us from our sins. He saved us from unbelief by giving us something--someONE, Himself, love--to believe in! And now that we are free FROM sin we are free TO live. That's what the perfect law of liberty is! Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Because the Spirit of the Lord is the Spirit of love. And to live is to love. To love is to live. That's what every Father wants for His Son. That's what comes from our new (original) nature. The divine nature. The nature of love. That's why we were created, and that's why Jesus died and rose again. He reconciled us to God. To the source of love. So that we might know and believe that we are loved... and love one another with that same love!