Paradox of the New Covenant
(Bible Study - August 2000) In this month’s installment, we will look at a series of related Bible teachings which make no sense when taken at face value. To make sense of these teachings, we need another level of thinking. The difference between "nonsense" and "makes sense" mirrors the difference between the thinking inherent to the legalist system and the thinking required for understanding the New Covenant. Applying Old Covenant thinking to the New Covenant amounts to putting new wine in old skins, and makes a worse legalism yet, by converting the principles of faith to legalist structures.
First, we will briefly list and comment on the passages. The pattern of the list will appear readily. Then we will discuss the significance of this list of teachings.
1. The first shall be last, and the last first (Lk. 13:30; Mk. 10:36; Mt. 19:30; 20:16.).
Jesus uses this formula to conclude several parables. It serves as a "moral of the story," and helps us understand the point of the parables: those who thought first of themselves, and then -- if at all -- the needs of others, would be last at the judgement, i.e., rejected. Dead last, so to speak. The phrase also carries the meaning "whoever comes in first in this life will come in last at the judgement." If you want what this world has to offer, you already have your reward. When we, however, put ourselves last, we are actually making ourselves first in God’s sight.
A law that bans law
Jesus’ enigmatic statement recorded in John 15:12 deserves special mention. "A
new command I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you." As we
noted in an earlier article (Jan/2000, Works of Faith), one cannot make a command
to love, for if love comes by command, it isn’t love. Love can only come as an
internal operation of God’s principles working within us to create a truly volitional
desire to serve and worship.
So how can Jesus say it’s a commandment?
We can paraphrase to clarify: "I have only one law. That law says, there are no laws (since love cannot be commanded), there is only love." If there is a law that says laws are "illegal," then are there any laws? Yes, the law that says so. No, because there aren’t any laws. Yes. No. Yes. No.
A never ending circle of a self-contained paradoxical saying. To understand teachings of this sort we must remove ourselves from the Greek/Pharisaic cause-effect linearity and enter the circular, interactive world of Biblical thought.
God’s thinking should stretch us. "My ways are not your ways," said the Lord God by Isaiah. Is it not far more likely that we would attempt to lower His teaching to concrete human levels than to try to grasp, even if dimly, the Divine mind? Understanding the paradoxical nature of the New Covenant is a good place to start elevating our minds.
David Levin
Next: Contrasting the Mind of Law and the Mind of Faith