INTRODUCTION Bridge Across the
Cosmos
Christianity
is more than rituals; it is deeper, and more profound, than rules. It is,
instead, a relationship between an offending being and an offended God.
Jesus Christ, through His incarnation, death, and resurrection, has become
the direct link between the offender and the offended. As God, He reached
into heaven; as man, He reached the earth; as both, He spanned the gap between
the two. He is, for us, a bridge across the cosmos. In Him, and through Him,
heaven and earth have become united.
How does it work? It is as simple as an exchange: Christ takes our sins and
gives us His righteousness so that, through Him, we are accounted as righteous
as God Himself. In this way, sin-that which formed the break between humankind
and God to begin with-is no longer attributed to us; it no longer has to
keep us separated from Him. Murderers, adulterers, bigots, liars, thieves,
and even the incestuous can all be viewed as righteous as God Himself. And
this wonderful gift, this accounting of righteousness, comes to them by faith,
and faith alone. Hence the phrase "righteousness by faith."
But it does not end there, either. Murderers, adulterers, bigots, liars,
thieves, and even the incestuous can, through Jesus, enter into a relationship
with God, because Jesus' blood brings not only forgiveness but cleansing,
healing, and restoration. We are, through Christ, born again, and through
this experience God writes His holy law upon the fleshy tables of our hearts.
Thus murderers, adulterers, bigots, liars, thieves, and the incestuous no
longer do the things they used to do. From and by this inward law, all of
life is shaped for the believer. These people desire to work out what God
puts within them, and that desire is matched with the promise of Divine power.
But this wonderful transformation does not happen in a vacuum. God does not
just arbitrarily do this work for some and not for others. At the same time,
He does not impose His saving grace upon us against our will. Instead, responding
to the prompting of His Holy Spirit, we enter into a special relationship
with Him, a relationship that is founded upon what the Bible calls "the
everlasting covenant," a covenant sealed and ratified by blood--the blood
of Christ.
This quarter we will study the covenant (or covenants). What is the covenant?
What is the purpose of the covenant? Why were there different covenants made
throughout history? What does it mean to be under the new covenant? What
obligations does it entail on our part? And how can we, as individuals, enjoy
the benefits of the covenant today?
EDITOR'S OVERVIEW
The Covenant
In 1588,
a young English woman (seven-months pregnant) looked out over the sea, and
what she saw--the Spanish Armada, with 130 heavily armed ships planning to
invade the island--so frightened her that she went into premature labor,
the midwife being fear.
Fear, in fact, was an apt metaphor for her child, Thomas Hobbes, who became
one of Europe's greatest political theorists. Living at a time when England
had been wracked by civil war and endless religious violence, Hobbes wrote
that humankind, without a strong, all-encompassing government, existed in
a state of perpetual fear- fear of instability, fear of conquest, and, most
of all, fear of death. People lived in what he called "the war of all against
all" and that unless something radical was done, human life would be, he
warned, nothing but "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."--"Advocates
of the Method of Science," in Socrates to Sartre: A History of
Philosophy, Samuel Enoch Stumpf, ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company,
1982), pp. 223, 225.
What was the solution? Hobbes said that there was only one: The people must
place themselves under a single power that would reduce all their wills to
a single will and that would exercise complete authority over them. This
power, this sovereign--be it a single man or an assembly of men--through
wielding absolute hegemony over the nation, would end the terrible conditions
that made their lives so fearful and unstable. In other words, in exchange
for all their rights, the people got peace and security instead. This transfer
of power, from the people to the sovereign, is what Hobbes called the covenant.
The covenant idea, however, did not originate with Thomas Hobbes. On the
contrary. Thousands of years earlier, God made a covenant with Israel, a
covenant whose roots, in fact, went back even farther in time. Unlike Hobbes's
covenant, which was initiated and promulgated by the people, this covenant
was initiated and promulgated by the true Sovereign, the Creator of heaven
and earth. Also, though Hobbes's covenant was motivated solely by fear, God's
covenant is motivated by love, His love for the fallen race, a love that
led Him to the Cross.
Because of the Cross, we love the Sovereign back, and just as in the Hobbesian
covenant, where the subjects had to surrender to the sovereign, we surrender,
too--our sinful ways, our fears, our twisted notions of right and wrong.
We do this not to gain something in return but because we have already been
given the best the Sovereign can give--Jesus Christ and the redemption found
only in Him.
This quarter we look closely at what God's covenant is, what it offers, even
what it demands. Though drawn from many sources, the lessons rely heavily
on work of the late Dr. Gerhard Hasel whose insights into the Word (where
the covenant promises are revealed) will give encouragement, hope, and
understanding in order that we can learn something which, perhaps, Thomas
Hobbes never did: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out
fear" (1 John 4:18).
Contents:
(all lessons may not be posted)
Giardina Sabbath School
Study Helps
Jerry Giardina of Pecos, Texas, assisted by his wife, Cheryl, prepares a
series of helps to accompany the Sabbath School lesson. He includes all related
scripture and most EGW quotations. Jerry has chosen the "New King James Version"
of the scriptures this quarter. It is used with permission. The study
helps are provided in three wordprocessing versions
Wordperfect; Microsoft
Word; RTF for our MAC friends; and
HTML (Web Pages).
Last updated on January 7, 2002
Editorial Office: 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904.
Principal Contributors: Based on previous work of Gerhard F.
Hasel
Editor: Clifford Goldstein (goldsteinc@gc.adventist.org)
Associate Editor: Lyndelle Brower Chiomenti.
Editorial Production Manager: Soraya Homayouni Parish.
Art and Design: Lars Justinen.
Pacific Press Coordinator: Paul A. Hey.
Copyright © 2003 Office of the Adult Bible Study Guide,
General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist. All Rights Reserved.
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