[pilgrim]

As a new believer in Christ over fifty years ago, I began my attempt at combining Scripture with Scripture to form a coherent picture. From the beginning, however, I noticed a difficulty in what my Bible called “The Gospels” in the New Testament. So often I felt I had a reasonable understanding of what the Lord said until I read the epistles of Paul. I then began to have doubts of what I thought I understood about the Lord’s teaching. What Paul said in his letters to the churches seemed easier to understand than what the Lord had taught. The insurmountable problem I always encountered was in harmonizing the two.

Where the Lord had spoken of keeping the commandments as a way to enter into life, Paul said of those who taught the necessity of keeping the Law (Commandments), “Let them be accursed,” and if one put himself under the obligation of keeping the Law, then Christ was useless to him and he was fallen from grace. The more I struggled to understand, the greater became the confusion, until finally I ceased to seriously study what my Bible called “The Gospels,” in what was said to be the New Testament.

As the years passed, without a deliberate study of certain passages, they nevertheless kept coming to mind. Speaking of the New Covenant, in The Epistle to The Hebrews it is said: “For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.” Only hours before His death, the Lord had said to His disciples when He passed the cup: “this is My blood of the New Covenant.”

Paul had said the Lord was “born under the law to redeem those under the law.” From my earliest years, I well remembered Christians often quoting: “without the shedding of blood there is no remission.”

Yet, it was sometime later when I began to put the above passages together with my earlier problem of harmonizing Paul’s teaching with the Lord’s words. By then the roots of Paul’s teaching on the Mosaic Law (Ten Commandments) had reached deep into my thinking. The more I studied the situation from the Scriptures, the more I realized that the division between the Old and New Covenant in my Bible was incorrect.

But even more serious were the ramifications of that mistake. It was a mixing of the Law of the Old Mosaic Covenant of commandments, and the gospel of grace under the New Covenant, where according to the apostle Paul, “Christ has delivered us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.”

The correct place for the beginning of the New Covenant is the Book of Acts. According to the Scriptures, the New Covenant could not begin until the sins committed under the Old Covenant were paid for. Consequently, it could not begin until the Lord’s death. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews said of Christ:

…He is the Mediator of the new covenant by means of death, for the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance (Heb. 9:15).

Here it is plainly stated that there could be no New Covenant, until the sins committed under the OC were paid for which was at the cross. Furthermore, the New Covenant is likened to a last will and testament where its provisions could only be realized by the testator’s (Christ’s) death.

For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives (Heb. 9:16-17).

The apostle Paul also said: "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons (Gal. 4:4-5)."

The above should make it abundantly clear that by His death on the cross, He redeemed those before the cross who were yet under the Mosaic Law before the New Covenant could begin. Therefore, to say the New Covenant began with Matthew is an extremely serious mistake. It will probably be said that it is not all that important. Is it not?

A young ruler came to the Lord one day and asked: "…Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” so He said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matt. 19:16-17).

A refusal to acknowledge the above truths, has spawned such as Seventh Day Advents, Seventh Day Baptists, etc, etc., and a whole host of people trying to gain favor with God and get to heaven by keeping the Mosaic Ten Commandments, that only applied to Israel before the cross. The church is not under the law. Neither could Israel keep the law.

Most certainly, the Lord taught that faith in Himself was the way of life for everyone (Jo. 3:14-18; 20:29-31). But His death where He paid the sin dept was not understood until after the cross. When the Memoirs erroneously called the Gospels are used as New Covenant documents, the ever present and inevitable problem remains. He was a teacher of the law, under the law. Not only did the Lord teach the necessity of keeping the commandments to have eternal life, but also instructed the disciples to do as the scribes and Pharisee’s taught.

The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do (Matt. 23:2-3).

Are we to do as the Pharisee say; keep the Sabbath, pay a tithe, and make animal sacrifices? Give a writing of divorce to our wife if she doesn’t please us. Without doubt, by questioning the paying of a tithe, some will respond by asking, are you saying we should not pay the pastor a salary? Of course not! What is being said is, nowhere in the NT is it said that we are to give 10 percent of our income to anyone.

The teaching of the apostle Paul who founded the present church and Dispensation of Grace is, we are to give freely as the Lord has blessed us, and according to our conscience. We are not under the Mosaic Law. Paul said to the Corinthians church: “So let each one give as he purposes in his own heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7).

Is the church composed of 12 tribes? If as the Amillennialists claim, we are the new Israel, to be consistent then, the church should be divided into 12 tribes. The tithe for the 11 tribes was for the upkeep of the tribe of Levi, who had no allotment of land in Israel when it was divided. And to be even more consistent, where is the allotment of lands for the eleven tribes of the church? Are they in America, or Israel, or if we are the kingdom, the world? The irrational and ridiculous can easily be seen when we turn the Scriptures into such fantasies through the amillennial teaching and present division of the covenants.

The greatest single problem Paul encountered was the unbelieving Jews insistence that Paul’s Gentile converts had to keep the commandments to be saved. It was the very exact thing the Lord taught the young ruler, and Paul’s answer to those who demanded that his converts keep the law to be saved in this Dispensation of Grace was:

"…if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you other than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel than what you have received, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:8-9).

And what had they received from Paul’s gospel? Of the Commandments he told the Roman church: “…Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4). “…And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements (the law of commandments) that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross (Col. 2:13-14, clarification added).

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace (Gal. 5:1-5).

It is plain that the Lord in regards to salvation did not teach the same plan of salvation that Paul did. Is Paul contradicting the Lord’s teaching? Certainly not! As already stated, the Lord taught what was demanded by the Mosaic Law of Commandments (Lev. 18:15) to the Jews, under which He ministered until His death on the cross. Insofar as the payment for sins was concerned, the law ended at the cross, to be replaced by salvation to us and the Jews through faith in the Lord’s death in our place completely apart from the law.


In His grace

pilgrim