The New Covenant

“This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.”

—Luke 22:20

The Israelites tried Moses tremendously. They were always in trouble. But as he went up onto the mountain and God unfolded to him the Ten Commandments, the glory fell. He rejoiced to bring those two tablets of stone down from the mountain, and his very face shone with the glory. He was bringing to Israel that which, if obeyed, would bring life.

I think of my Lord coming from heaven. I think all heaven was moved by the sight. The letter of the law was brought by Moses, and it was made glorious, but all its glory was dimmed before the exceeding glory that Jesus brought to us in the Spirit of life. The glory of Sinai paled before the glory of Pentecost. The Lord has brought in a new covenant, putting His law in our minds and writing it in our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33)—this new law of the Spirit of life. As the Holy Spirit comes in, He fills us with love and liberty, and we shout for joy. Henceforth, there is a new cry on our hearts: “I delight to do Your will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8). “He takes away the first that He may establish the second” (Hebrews 10:9). In other words, He takes away “the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones” (2 Corinthians 3:7), so that He may establish “the ministry of righteousness” (verse 9), this life in the Spirit.

You ask, “Does a man who is filled with the Spirit cease to keep the commandments?” I simply repeat what the Spirit of God has told us here, that this “ministry of death, written and engraved on stones” (and you know that the Ten Commandments were written on stones) is “passing away” (verse 11). However, the man who becomes a living epistle of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:3), written by the Spirit of the living God, has ceased to be an adulterer or a murderer or a covetous man; the will of God is his delight. I love to do the will of God; there is no irksomeness to it. It is no trial to pray, no trouble to read the Word of God; it is not a hard thing to go to the place of worship. With the psalmist I say, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord’” (Psalm 122:1).

How does this new life work out? It works out because God “works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). There is a big difference between a pump and a spring. The law is a pump; the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a spring. The old pump gets out of order; the parts wear out, and the well runs dry. “The letter kills” (2 Corinthians 3:6). But the spring is ever bubbling up, and there is a ceaseless flow direct from the throne of God. There is life.

It is written of Christ, “You love righteousness and hate wickedness” (Psalm 45:7). In this new life in the Spirit, in this new covenant life, you love the things that are right and pure and holy, and you shudder at all things that are wrong. Jesus was able to say, “The ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me” (John 14:30). The moment we are filled with the Spirit of God, we are brought into a wonderful condition like this.

Thought for today: As we continue to be filled with the Spirit, the enemy cannot have an inch of territory in us.