Books like this (small booklet) have been part of satisfying the thirst of many believers. Having a number of Bible verses in one place in some kind of order is a huge time saver. But what if the order itself has no structure? Chaos follows. The entry for covenant in this book has two parts: new and old.

Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,

Hebrews 13:20

If the point is to compare the two then one should use the same measures: the same hearings and questions.

The new covenant is in Christ’s blood. He ratifies it. There is no connection to the Sinai or the Palestinian covenant. It has nothing to do with Israel’s exit from Egypt

Hebrews 8:8-9

8. For finding fault with them, he says, Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: 9. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, says the Lord.

There is no commandment participation

God’s role is clear – I will. Human participation does not include drilling it into “our kids” for example as the custom was for the old/first covenant.

• I will put my laws into their mind, and
• write them in their hearts:
• I will be to them a God, and
• they shall be to me a people
• they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
• I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,
• I will remember their sins and their iniquities no more.

The author is not comparing old and New covenant. He is actually making the points he wants to make about obedience about where the covenant placed but he says nothing about the record of keeping those Commandments.

Criteria for the new

• Where written
• Compared to the other
• Same as another
• Who ratifies
• What is its commemoration

The writer wants to say that the law is now written in human hearts but he does not deny that you can’t be teaching people about that. He compares the old to the new without saying they are different. He talks about the ratification of the old but says nothing about the ratification of the new by the blood of the Incarnate Word, not by animal blood being sprinkled on a book. There is no commemoration of the first covenant. The Jew is obliged to do what it says, not celebrate it.

Criteria for the old

• Must obey God
• What it is based on
• Who wrote it where
• With what it is ratified
• People quickly broke it

Hundreds of years later

Following the Sinai failure the precious message from God became talking points until judgment arrived and exiled the Jewish people.

How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.

Lamentations 4:1

Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the Lord.

Lamentations 2:9

This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; but you shall meditate therein day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.

Joshua 1:8

Depart from my mouth? It would be a genuine comfort if I could recall who put all that there, because I am not a Jew (even though I am a follower of the King of the Jews, the Saviout of the world). Not many of us can honestly recall getting a mouthful of law, yet some would love to keep pretending that they were born with the law of God in their hearts, and they lost it. This should disturb every believer.

Knowing that the law is not for the just[ified] we can restate what has been said to us consistently. (1) The law is spiritual (2) so one needs to be born again (3) to recognize (discern) it and (4) there is no guarantee that one observes its hundreds of instructions, and then (they tell us) that (5) the believer needs to hide God’s word in our hearts (6) so that we do not sin against him.

That is what we say. What we mean walks away from the writer’s intention and end up making up what we want people  to hear. How many lies did you detect in that scenario? The law is, pure and simple, a lot of talk. Do not complicate your life by labeling God’s work with Israel as God’s will for the human race. How many of us are ready to go where the Hebrew people have lived?

Was Moses terrified or reverent in his encounter with Yahweh on Mount Sinai?

18) For you are not come to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, 19) And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: 20) (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: 21. And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)

Hebrews 12:18-21

We can try to restate the Joshua proposition as we can best receive it.

• I, Gentile, need to learn everything that is written because I need death and condemnation
• I, Gentile, need to say (recite, meditate on) everything that is written because I am a leader in Israel
• I, Gentile, need to observe everything that is written
• Because that is how I, Gentile, ensure prosperity and success for myself

If we found the mercy, justice and faith in those books we would have neither the community nor the authorized processes to make them work. If we are fearful of not pleasing God then we can consider that God’s love is a stranger to our hearts.

Reverently receiving the word

Much of the message planted in Joshua will find no good ground where it can germinate. Consider the following. Some things in Scripture are not going to be repeated and others are fulfilled and pass away.

• None of us is anywhere near Joshua’s person, or near his actual or typical mission.
• No believer sits as the leader of God’s people.
• No believer is responsible, like Cap’n Joshua, for taking the Lord’s people into their inheritance.

I can read a story and find neither instruction nor correction. Most people tend to invent a morale. The truly dangerous set Scripture aside and get the meaning from a dream or vision or create a story with magical twist. What is missing is a heart open to love people like God does. That is fear’s antidote.

Mix the spices together to make a sweet-smelling incense. Do this the same as a perfume maker would do it. Also mix salt with this incense. This will make it pure and special.

Exodus 30:35

The old and the new, symbol and reality

Sweet aromas and salt were a part of the sacred tent. The fact that God included a particular odour in this arrangement for communication and residence with his people tells us that God’s idea of holiness is atmosphere. The senses come into play in a big way. Even though a privileged few saw, smelled and heard the features of the tabernacle inner operations the aroma of the incense went where the wind blew it. The aroma gets you as you approach the tent.

Seasoned Christian

TWO SMELLS are in the works of the Christian life according to 2 Corinthians 2:14-16. We give off knowledge of the divine, everywhere.

(14) But thanks be to God, who always leads us in victory through Christ. God uses us to spread his knowledge everywhere like a sweet-smelling perfume.(15) Our offering to God is to be the perfume of Christ that goes out to those who are being saved and to those who are being lost.

1. (16) To those who are being lost, this perfume smells like death, and it brings them death.
2. But to those who are being saved, it has the sweet smell of life, and it brings them life.

Who is competent to do this work? With whom does the buck stop when life and death are at stake?
Who has the keys of death and life, the grave and grace? Who supplies the salt?

When you get a chance to tell who you are – given certain limits – what do you choose to highlight? Is it the great pedigree of your clan, the distinctive features on your character, the trending human description (good, different, free). or is it what the majority (the rest of the world) sees? One of the sickening realities about identity is that while science continues the search at great cost for human origins the globe is trapped in an identity crisis: we do not know who our neighbours are and we do not care.

Me-first is a deadend

Let no law or decree wedge you off the bridge. Islam follows the Way by four centuries and while it rewrites the Hebrew scriptures, which are thousands of years older and pretends to interpret the New Testament which claims to be the fulfillment of the old testament, it is obvious it doesn’t care that the Jews have done one thing we cannot deny. The Jews have the accurate record of what God did and wants.

Let people tell you who they are. Just stand back and watch their actions. Are they killing or redeeming life, liberating men women and children or are they enslaving people?

Strong men and boys make a curious team. The poster for this concept is George Washington and the cowardly, juvenile, and bigoted persons who have followed him in the office. If there is a judgment day for nations we are witnessing God’s lawsuit against them all.

Fateful bird feeding

There is a banquet for the saints at the end of the age. It celebrates the Lamb’s wedding reception. Another banquet is the bird feeding buffet for the demons, the birds.

That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.

Revelation of John 19:18

Patriotism smells like 1933 to 1945 and joining God to any county or nation is idolatry prime. The rulers (of earth), the magnates, the proceeds of military ventures, all kinds of human beings will be demon food. Magnates, even ones with questionable acumen like the infamous 45, will lead the opposition to true compliance with God’s will. Our dependence on a law that includes lawbreaking – sting and covert operations – as a means to keep the peace does not deserve the attention of those who are strong to love mercy and justice.

1. And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and you princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? 2. Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; 3. Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.

Micah 3:1-3

Growing up and achievement

How many privates actually become staff sergeants? How many believers become elders (bishops, pastors? If there is a George Washington in every American heart then there are revolutions all around us. At least the young nonwhite people and the vast majority know that American greed has paused its revolution. As the thirst for money fed the lust for blood magnates and gun manufacturers have hijacked America’s legislative agenda and her repentance.

The current occupant of the White House is a genuine confetti magnate. He has brought America to her mercenary best, protecting Saudi oil and government, making friends with brutal despots, and more recently, recommending medical professionals use bandanas and scarves as personal protective equipment while Cuba has medicines ready to treat covid19 symptoms. Every Christian paying homage to any country or criminal enterprise like the administration of potus45 should check his born again certificate.

Then said the LORD to me, What see you, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil.

Jeremiah 24:3

28) He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: 29) Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

Hebrews 10:28-29 28.

Blood was one of those ordinary things that became extraordinarily important for rituals.  People caught it in bowls, transported it to designated places, finger- sprinkled it on designated altars, smeared it, and poured it. What we do with covenant blood is a lot like these levitical routines but Christ is not a levitical priest, and we have found nither bowl nor altars nor mercy seat that is not literally the man Messiah Yeshua.

The blood of Christ was never a common or ordinary thing such as the roasted flesh, cakes, drink offerings, the gold, the silver, or grain were. No one gets to catch it in bowls, transport anywhere,  finger- sprinkle, smear it, or pour it.
The Lamb’s preparation and the sprinkling of his blood has no precedent in Scripture. He is the priest. He is the sacrifice. He is the altar (thusiaterion) where atonement (propitiation or satisfaction) takes place and he is the peace that results from God’s intervention.

So what does one do with Christ’s blood? Accept its application. Material transfer of blood such as pouring and sprinkling makes no sense at all. Believers get a cleansing bath in it: to use an analogy from the scriptures which is unrelated to the Tabernacle we read about the fountain of blood opened for David’s house; a fountain where one wades out, dips or stands in the stream.

Who sprinkled me?

Here are four views of blood sprinkling which can help us free our minds of the blood miracle fan syndrome. (1) sprinkling was the cleansing routine (Heb 9:13) , (2) the passover was a practical sprinkling that saved lives (Heb. 11:28), (3) Yeshua’s covenant blood involves sprinkling (Heb. 12:24) and (4) Peter (1:1:2) assures us that our election and sanctification are intended to bring us to obedience and blood sprinkling.

Hebrews 9:13, flesh vs concience

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, santifies to the purifying of the flesh:

Hebrews 11:28, doorpost smearing

Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.

Hebrews 12:24, vindicate vs condemn

And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel.

1 Peter 1:2, start vs success

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

No red stuff – blood represents life

• Christ’s laid his life down = death = blood shed
• Christ’s gives us life = Holy Spirit

We can be sure that Christ was never in a two-apartment structure sprinkling or pouring his blood onto holy surfaces. He is not a priest like that. Christ is not handling blood. Blood represents life lost and life shared. The death of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit are the only personal lifelines we know. If we cannot accept that blood and all those things in the tabernacle are symbols and that Christ himself replaces all of them we are drifting away from the lifeboat. We have floated so far away from reality that these Jewish images are deemed to exceed the Lord’s glory. His significance exceeds anything that is in heaven. His blood is strictly treatment for sin. Any other idea is of demonic origin.

We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

Hebrews 13:10

O LORD our Lord, how excellent [is] thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

Ps. 8:1