Health food aficionados are currently touting the benefits of ancient grains. Archeologists always wax eloquent about discovering ancient ruins. Musicologists get teary-eyed listening to ancient forms of melodic line such as Gregorian chant. Well, as Jesus’ followers today, we can stand proud in the knowledge of our ancient roots. We are far from being recent upstarts. We have history. We have pedigree. Not one unbesmirched with traces of our Adamic nature, of course. But one which, for all its many unlovely bits, is crowned with the cleansing of our resurrected Jesus, the bringer of a Second Covenant.
That First Covenant was intended to point up the impossibility of sinful humankind entering successfully into a relationship with a holy God – solely on human ‘merits.’ The stringent requirements of the sacrificial system kept the reality of that truth ever before the Israelites. The Ten Commandments, too, held them to a high and holy standard of living. Of course, the hope was that God’s people would come to love and appreciate this relationship and grow further and further away from the ‘sin that so easily besets.’ But no, sin offerings increased exponentially because they (tragically) seemed to provide a way for God’s people to maintain a relationship with God without a change of heart or behavior toward Him.
Cue the breaking in of the Kingdom with the arrival of Jesus. His brief, sinless life as a man demonstrated top shelf holy living and qualified him as the ultimate satisfier of all the requirements of the Law in his pure, unblemished sacrifice on the cross. The enormity of what Jesus accomplished will never be fully or adequately told. His taking upon himself the entire sin of all mankind inaugurated the most radical Kingdom takeover in all of history. As I write this, I am acutely conscious of the fact that I am but one whose life, like multiple millions of redeemed saints, is whole and is being made whole in Jesus. It’s all by his grace, that abounding provision of heaven in the Second Covenant! It’s true, ‘I am a sinner grace is still healing. I am a story, life is revealing. I’m all of these things but mostly I’m thankful.’ Lyrics from One More Day* by Sons of Sunday. PD
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