Re: [TruthTalk] Toward a (biblical) Unilateral Covenant

[Knpraise]

In regard to BillyT and his commentary on unilateral and bi-lateral..

Bll writes:  "And so we see that the movement of God's reconciling love toward Israel not only revealed Israel's sin but intensified it."

Bill probably did not have the following in mind, but this confirming thought came to my pea-brained attention.   

When Jesus presented what we call the Sermon on the Mount, he fulfilled a purpose that is very much in line with this notion of "intensification."   At least to me.   If the law was difficult to keep before the sermon, it was nearly impossible to keep afterwards.    He speaks of cutting off your offending hand, plucking out the lustful eye.  He expands the law from what is said and done to what is simply thought.   He stresses maturity on the level of the Heavenly Father.  He argues against self defense (turn the other cheek), giving to others without personal provision, offering  voluntary service upon that which is required.  He proclaims that temper will find one in the fires of the trash heap.  He orders anonymous giving, private prayer, joyful fasting,

Christ takes the Law and intensifies it requirements  --  to the point of near impossibility.    In fact, I have yet to meet the man or woman who measures up to this sermon in every aspect.     If this is the measure of our judgment, how great must be the blessings of that covenant made so many years before !!   Man is not fully reconciled to God until man is broken of his self-aggrandizing spirit and fully surrendered to a God who demands perfection while granting redemption all in the same breath.    For me, the life of Christ undermines all my excuses and reasoned theology while His death is the ultimate act of reconciliation.

Until sin is intensified in our lives to the point of true awareness, the opportunity for full appreciation is not present.   And until we come to see the unilateral activity of God in Christ, Him doing what we cannot do for ourselves, there is no dynamic and vital reason for acting out our faith  --   there is no real sense of partnership with the Divine.  

Bill's commentary has put this lesson in the only context that works for me.   A teaching is always "masterful" when it puts you mind of the Author and Finisher of our faith.  


John