The song is available on the “Songs of Grace” page. You will be able to see and hear all the lyrics of this Grace-based scripture song. It highlights many of the points in this Post. You can also play the song on YouTube.

Jesus, the Tree of Life

The previous Post presented some of the many important differences in the Five Main covenants – which are the skeletal framework of the Bible. We know from the Bible that God is perfect, heaven is perfect and God even made a perfect garden for Adam and Eve to live in and be in daily fellowship with Him. That is no fairy tale. God would not kid around with such an important indicator of how good He really is.

God wanted Adam to eat of the Tree of Life – the “Jesus Tree.” Conversely, He warned Adam not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – the “Law or Morality Tree.” Why? Because Adam was created in right relationship with God and “knowing evil” by listening to evil then doing evil would cause him to “become evil” i.e. unrighteous. So his disobedience made him spiritually “dead” to God’s by rejecting the Life Tree.

Worse yet, he could do nothing to change that spiritual condition – or his enslavement to the devil. And, when He rejected God’s warning, he not only lost his own right-relationship with God but all of his descendants are also born spiritually dead to God – unrighteous – because God regarded Adam as mankind’s First Representative and we are of Adam’s seed. (Jesus Christ was the exception because He was born of the seed implanted in Mary by the Holy Spirit.)

Only Two Kinds of Humans

Consequently, from God’s Big Picture point of view, there are now ultimately two kinds of human beings: 1) those who are in Adam by natural birth and 2) those who are in Christ by being reborn of God. We now know by revelation what Adam’s Fall cost us spiritually because Jesus made it clear to Nicodemus that “… unless a man is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God,” (John 3:5).

But that miracle of spiritual “rebirth” that everyone now needs was not available until Jesus made it possible – on Calvary. His perfect sacrifice fully paid for all sin of all mankind for all time and began the New Covenant of total Grace! Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s covenant promise to Adam that He would send someone as a Redeemer – mankind’s second and Last Representative

Also, in the previous Post, we noted the drastic differences between the Abrahamic and the Mosaic Covenant. Even though Abraham was in Adam, God honored Abraham’s faith in God’s promises by imputing – crediting to him – right-standing and even called him a “friend.” Their relationship was based on Abraham’s “believing,” not on his imperfect “doing.” In other words, it was based on God’s gift of Grace that enabled Abraham to believe in promises that he could not yet see in the Seen Realm.

Later, the Israelites under Moses were legal beneficiaries of God’s gracious faith-based covenant gifted to Abraham. God mercifully delivered them from their slavery in Egypt as prophesied and brought them to Himself at Mt. Sinai. There, through Moses, God offered a conditional covenant to them saying:

If you hearken to My voice and keep My covenant you shall be My special possession, dearer to Me than all other people … You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. … And all the people answered together ‘Everything the Lord has said, we will do.’ (Exodus 19:5-6 & 8a).

But then we see in Exodus 20:18-21 that they rejected having a personal, direct relationship with God (like Abraham had enjoyed) because of fear – instead of faith – and told Moses to be their intermediary. So why did God offer these descendants of His friend, Abraham, a covenant He knew they could not keep? Verse 8a gives us a good hint. They boasted that they could keep whatever commands that He gave to them.

They foolishly put their faith in their own pitiful “doing” rather than depend on God’s wonderful “doing.” Eventually their conditional, works-based covenant totaled 613 laws. (Remember: A perfect Adam did not even keep one! Think about it.) In God’s Big Picture, He used the Mosaic Covenant to demonstrate to them and to us the real root cause of all human problems and evil behavior – namely, our fallen human spirit-self that is dead to God because we are all born in Adam.

Our fundamental problem was not exposed under the terms of the Abrahamic Covenant because the conditional, works-based terms of the Law Covenant were not given to Abraham. (Romans 5:13) Abraham did not make the covenant with God so he could not break the covenant. His in Adam nature was there, causing his less than perfect behavior, but God graciously chose to overlook his behavior and credited right-standing because of his faith alone – as faltering as it sometimes was! The bottom line is: If we are unfaithful, He (God) remains faithful because He cannot deny Himself, (2 Timothy 2:13). That, my friend, is Total Grace.

Again, it is our loving God’s grace and mercy that reveals this truth: mankind’s “troubles” are, ultimately, not the result of “law-breaking behavior” but of a fallen nature – the result of being descended from and, therefore, in Adam, mankind’s original parent. Since this root cause of evil is hidden in the unseen realm of each person’s spirit-self (not just in one’s soul), it is impossible for mankind to detect it apart from God’s divine revelation. Likewise, it is also impossible for us to fix our corrupted spirit nature by any human effort – such as “behavior modification.” So, again, what is God’s solution: we must be born from above, (John 3:7).

We  Are Tri-part Beings

Now God’s requirement/offer of a “spiritual rebirth” is based on a deeper revelation found in Hebrews 4:12, namely, all humans are Tri-part beings. We are spirit-beings, with a soul that lives in a physical body. God, who is a Spirit-being, created Adam and Eve in His own image and likeness. But through disobedience, Adam became spiritually dead to God and in league with the devil – even though he still talked with God when he was no longer in the Garden.

In Galatians 2:19-20 and 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul describes the process of being “born of God” by saying, through revelation knowledge from God:

For through the Law I died to the Law so that I now live for God (not for Moses). I have been crucified with Christ; it is not longer I who live but it is Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old (spirit-self) has passed away. Behold the new (me) has come.

Instantly, we become a “new creation spirit-being,” regenerated by God, who is our new Father.

Any “gospel” which tries to add any mixture of Law-keeping effort with Jesus’ perfect, comprehensive, Finished Work on Calvary to earn or maintain right-standing with God is no gospel at all, (Galatians 1:6-8). This revelation from Jesus becomes clear once you comprehend the details of our initial, unseen condition as in Adam sinners the way God does. Again, the Bible reveals that all humans are sinners because of being in Adam. We can become “saints who still sometimes sin” only when reborn as a new spirit-being in Christ Jesus. (See Romans 10:9-13)

Righteousness under the Mosaic Law Covenant required a lifelong, sinless performance. Righteousness under Jesus’ New Covenant in His blood required 1) His perfect, sinless life  on earth, then 2) Him giving Himself as a gift to all who believe and receive Him by faith. Mercifully, New Covenant righteousness is not based on a saint’s fallible performance but on accepting and being united with God’s free gift of Jesus through rebirth. Then He, our “Tree of Life,” instantly becomes every believer’s wisdom, righteousness, holiness and redemption in God’s eyes, according to 1 Corinthians 1:30.

The Ultimate Goal of Jesus’ Gospel – Relationship with God Himself

To put it another way, in His mercy, God sent His own Son, whose sacrifice of His perfect self on Calvary made it possible for us to become what we could never, ever have accomplish by ourselves – God’s children, united to a perfect Father. Jesus made that request at the Last Supper when He prayed for us to His Father: “that they all may be one as you, Father, are in Me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us …” (John 17:21).

That has always been Their desire for all of mankind. Everything that Jesus said and did had that unfathomable goal in mind, agreed upon with His Father before Jesus left heaven to come here as a man. Since the Mosaic Law system could only reveal (not fix) man’s perverted nature in Adam, the Law was nailed to the cross for believers, (Colossians 2:14 and Ephesians 2:15). Father-God gave a completely New, grace-based Covenant – and a “higher law,” Romans 8:2 – to all His precious, reborn children, thanks to Jesus’Blood sacrifice on our behalf. Thank you Jesus!

We can now understand what Paul meant in Romans 3:31:

“Do we nullify the (Mosaic) Law by this faith (in Jesus)? Absolutely not! Rather we uphold the Law.”

Jesus came under the Mosaic Law Covenant and upheld the Law by keeping the spirit of the Law perfectly for our sakes so that He could give us His “earned” righteousness as a gift. Then the Law was abolished in His flesh (for believers, Ephesians 2:15) when He became sin and then paid for and forgave the sins of the whole world, according to 2 Corinthians 5:19-21. Christ is now the end of the Mosaic Law for all Christians (Romans 10:4), for, again, we now have a “higher Law” in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2).

Therefore, we “uphold the Mosaic Law” only to do what God intended it to do – to bring the unsaved to see their need for mankind’s Savior, Christ Jesus. But it should never be used to punish, or browbeat or control or shame or condemn any believer. Why? Jesus made this clear to Paul who wrote 1 Timothy 1:8-9 to set the record straight:

We know that the Law is good if one uses it correctly, by knowing this that the Mosaic Law is not meant for a righteous one (those justified in Christ) but the Law is laid down for the lawless, rebellious, ungodly and sinful ones (those still in Adam) … .

In other words, the law principle of the knowledge of good and evil and its consequences (condemnation) is for the unrighteous because all those who are still in Adam are justly under condemnation. But there is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, (Romans 8:1). Jesus revealed to Paul that the saints do not “fall from Grace” by sinning but by mentally going back under a law system to try to earn or maintain His gift of righteousness, (Galatians 5:4). That is “religion,” not Christianity. Their “fall” does not cause another “spiritual death” and “loss of salvation” but a less than victorious life in this seen realm.

So, if you still try to obtain or maintain – by Law keeping – what you already have in Christ, it shows you need a fresh revelation of who you really are and have in Him. That is what this Blog is dedicated to help you understand and enjoy as a child God and a joint-heir in Christ, (Romans 8:17).

In two weeks I will post “the Harsh Realities of the Mosaic Law” to make it even clearer  that God’s higher Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus replaced the Mosaic Law for believers and is the only “law” that is necessary for victory in Christ Jesus.