Both
Jeremiah and
Ezekiel contain some rebuke to the eloquently complaining Israelites about personal responsibility. They cannot argue with God that everything is the fault of their sinful ancestors.
Hebrews chapters 8,10 and 9 teach that the new covenant is about
an eternal redemption obtained by Jesus when He shed His redeeming blood.
ThinkofOne hopes that he can find surrounding verses in
Jeremiah 31 and
Ezekiel 18 which will prove to himself that he has no need other than to be an Atheist Humanist with a self effort to do better, take responsibility in a universe where God does not exist.
Some people put the Bible away to hide from God.
ThinkOfOne is of a more subtle group. He actually picks up the Bible in order to hide from God.
Hebrews 9 about Jeremiah's prediction:
"And not through the blood of goats and calves but through His own blood entered once for all into the Holy of Holies, obtaining an eternal redemption." (Heb. 9:12
That is the meaning of -
"For I will be propititous to their unrighteousnesses, and their sins I shall by no means remember anymore." (Heb. 8:12 comp. Jer. 31:34)
You decide whose word you are going to take on this - the Atheist's or the book of
Hebrews.
He may attempt to portray me as saying that this is the
ONLY thing the new covenant is about. The new covenant is not
ONLY about forgiveness. It is also about God imparting His life and nature into man. This is also in the New Testament. This is also in Hebrews where Christ will -
"I will impart My laws into their mind, and on their hearts I will inscribe them; and I will be God to them, and they will be a people to me." (Heb. 8:10)
That involves the cooperation of the Christian personally to receive Christ dispensing His Spirit and law of life into more and more of our hearts.
This should be appreciated WITH:
"an eternal redemption" (8:12);
"eternal salvation" (5:9)
and
"eternal redemption" (9:12)
Now ThinkOfOne goes to
Ezekiel 18 to shout out something about one's own righteousness.
Each will be judged according to his own ways.
The righteous (those who cease to sin) will live.
Those who continue to sin will die.
For the righteous, none of his transgressions will be remembered against him BECAUSE OF HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Inexplicably in the OP Jaywill asserts that Jeremiah 31 says that "Your sins and your iniquities He will by no means remember any more under the blood of Jesus" when in fact it has nothing to do with being "washed in the blood". Rather it is contingent on the individual becoming righteous (ceasing to sin)
The new covenant first puts the sinner on a righteous standing before God positionally. Because God will impart His law of life into the fabric of their beings, dispositionally, they must be sanctified too.
The process starts with the truth that the redeemed one's righteousness is Jesus Christ Himself. He stand on Christ's merit and through Christ he has become the righteousness of God in Christ.
"Him who did not know sin He made sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5:21)
I have a standing before God in which I have become the righteousness of God in Christ.
My position from which dispositional sanctification and holy making will occur is as me being justified to the degree that I am God's righteousness in Christ. We cannot get any more justified, forgiven, redeemed then that positionally.
But the Christian needs subjective transformation so that not only his standing is right before God but the fabric of his entire soul is made right too. God's salvation will do this.
Let's not go too far from
Hebrews which is the book that quotes
Jeremiah 31 explaining that it is the
eternal salvation.
Christ as a Great High Priest, is able to save the believers, not just a little bit, but to
"the uttermost". As long as Christ lives He lives to intercede for the sanctification and transformation of those on this righteous standing.
"And they [OT priests] are appointed priests many in number because death prevents them from continuing.
But He [Christ] , because He abides forever, has His priesthood unalterable. Hence also He is able to save to the UTTERMOST those who come forward to God through Him,
since He lives always to intercede for them." (Heb. 7:23-25)
This is not just Christ praying objectively for us in an outward way. It is Christ interceding to work His life to be compounded into the believer's life in a way of union.
This dispensing of His life into believers is the
Jeremiah truth of God writing His laws into man's heart and inscribing them into man's inward parts including his mind.
And cooperation with this additional aspect of the new covenant is serious and not without some consequences. There are five warnings in the book of
Hebrews which warn to cooperate with this subjective and dispositional aspect of the new covenant.
God can forget our sins as to eternity yet discipline His sons for their transformation.
But let's come back to the blood of Jesus. That is what ThinkOfOne wants to teach is meaningless. He doesn't think he needs eternal redemption through the blood of Christ. If he can convince me that I have no ground to believe this that self encourages him of his good argument.
ThinkOfOne looks to this:
I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall.
God's personal judgment is exactly what happened when Christ died for me on the cross. It was exceedingly personal. My sins were judged in Jesus Christ on the cross.
Because He is God-man, the significance of His death can be personal and universal. God can do that. We are commanded to have faith that this has occured, in Hebrews too.
"But My righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, My soul does not delight in him.
But we are not of those who shrink back to ruin but of them who have faith to the gaining of the soul." (Heb. 10:38.39)
Those partaking of eternal redemption need to live by faith that their soul subjectively would be gained - sanctified, transformed, conformed to the image of Christ.
It is not through
"dead works" of the Atheistic legalistic Humanist we live. But standing on a conscience made pure by the blood of Jesus we are gained in the soul.
"How much more shall THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
And because of this He is the Mediator of a new covenant, ... the eternal inheritance" ( See Heb. 9:14,15)
[Most important words to the subject, I included]
How To Be Washed in the Blood
14 Apr '18 18:431 edit
Back to Top