Only one real door

Paul urges all to live in the Spirit since those who live in the law cannot minister the Kingdom of God. Why? This is a Kingdom of kings and priests  and not of slaves.

‘But what does the Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son’ Gal 4.30 NIV.

Adventists are sincere and good people. But unless our life is Christ; unless we are living in the New Covenant, we are not competent to minister the Kingdom of God. We can minister kindness and goodness but never the authority that Jesus has over sin and the devil. This is to say that as prisoners of the Old Covenant and sons of the slave woman, our stature is dwarfish and our swords miniscule.

The unfortunate dilemma of God’s Adventist people is that they interpret the New Testament through the Sabbath. This ties them to the law, the Old Covenant, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – but unfortunately not to the cross, which is the tree of life.

You may believe as an Adventist that God asks you to ‘keep the Sabbath.’ He did in the Old Testament, but you are a child of the New. Here you live in a New and Living Way, a righteousness sent from God which is the THE PERSON OF GOD’S SON. While the Bible is a consistent whole, the New Testament is not the Old Testament with Jesus added. Let’s say that another way. The New Covenant is not the old re-invented with Jesus’ help.

We live in a whole new era – a change from the law of sin and death to the law of the Spirit of Life. The first is an abstract rendition of the knowledge of good and evil. Something the Father gave as a School master to lead to His Son. The second is Jesus, the personification of life and goodness – Jesus Christ in you. Christ in you as your life is the point of Jesus’ victory at the cross.

It is a great mistake to believe that the Bible is one continuous whole. The last book of the Old Testament marks the end of the account of our life in Adam.

Matthew records the beginning of our life in Christ. John announces a new Genesis; a new creation in Christ. The Bible is one whole that is consummated in the Person of Jesus. But the New Testament is not a re-invention of the Old in Jesus mode, which means that many of us have been greatly misled.

The confusing factor is that Adventists as well as many other Christians live in Adam and attempt to use Jesus to do it. They have not fully grasped what Jesus has done. This is to say they have remained eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, hoping that Jesus will help them eat it well. But this fruit always brings death.

Adventists are more solidly glued to Adam than most others since, they are bound to it by a doctrine which is inimical to their identity and purpose. Many in the Body still wade through a molasses swamp of good and evil because our natural inclination is to live in this realm. To the natural mind this dichotomy seems ‘natural’ and normal. But this is not the new and living way.

Large numbers believe Christianity is about being good – with Christ’s help. But the Kingdom of God is about life in God’s Son by the Spirit.

Unless we understand the difference between the Old and the New Testament and the meaning of the New Covenant we can never minister its love and authority. Nor can we meet the standards we set for ourselves – unless we adopt the practice of picking on some part of the law like the Sabbath, focusing on this one aspect and then persuading ourselves that we are righteous and whole because we are Sabbath-keepers. Trouble is, real righteousness is infinite. Paul states emphatically that if we remain looking for salvation in law, then for us Christ died for nothing, which means that we are under a curse and absorbed in self-effort which can only multiply death.

‘He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant–not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’ 2 Cor 3.6 NIV.

The Lord once gave me a picture of Avondale College surrounded by an extensive cemetery that extended right out to the gates. The institution and those like it are founded on death! The gift of God is Jesus who is infinite life. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. When Jesus is our life this infinite life wells up in us in continual novelty and freshness. Crucified to self in Jesus we live a raised life, because we are filled with the power of the Resurrected One. Thus we have not a day dedicated to Jesus but a life that is His. Our re-creation and our rest is Jesus.

Further Reading: Hazel Holland, Ramone Romero, and Cherry Brandstater.

 

Keith Allen