The New Covenant, and what lies ahead...

 

Sun Jun 8^th 2025

Intimations 

Last week we checked out the Old Covenant’s history of salvation; how it began, why it began, and how it all ended. So what was to be done? Somewhere in those days, between the writings that became the Book of Leviticus, and Isaiah’s words on the suffering servant, the promise of God’s fulfilment of the ‘blessed to be a blessing’ from Gen 12  becomes complete.

Per Leviticus 16’s retelling of the tradition, every once a year there would be a day of atonement; the High Priest would take the blood of an animal and go into the inner sanctuary and offer it for the sins of all. It would have to be done every year, in order to keep relationship with God afloat, intact, effective. Until the Messiah, Emmanuel, would come and sacrifice himself for us. With his own blood, shed for all of us in a unique once and for always action. Why the blood sacrifice? It has to do with what God is and what God requires in achieving the self-balance of a loving Being. It requires Self-Giving. And life is in blood. God, giver of life, asks the same of God’s own Self to heal the spiritual rift caused by separation. A life gioving spirit bond broken cannot be remade without cost. And it can only be done this way.

So, in the fullness of time, God would come in Jesus, and the atonement would be completed, for all time, for all persons. Hence the death of Jesu. Not this stuff about dying on the cross. In those days, too many were sentenced to death on the cross. The cross for Jesus symbolized an unknown type of much deeper pain and suffering – a Godly sacrifice. God killing God’s self or part of God’s self, for us. Hence the old hymn of What Wondrous Love is This is entirely relevant. Each one of us is worth the blood of that killing i.e. the life of God given for us = the full dimension of God’s love for us. The pain of true love in the self-sacrificial love of God. That is the model of and for Christian love. And it is the beginning of an awesomely significant shift. As I once said, now the goal changes, the parameters extend, the paradigm shifts. The meaning of salvation itself changes, from delivery from the separation of sin to delivery into a new mode of existence. Kingdom bound. This is the prototokos being that Jesus calls us into.

No need for a lot of words in historic ritual that we cannot convert into concrete meaning and action. No need for a lot of academic debate over what is correct interpretation. Focus instead on what works for the good of all, and how we are all called to be a part of that.  The Jesus ‘form of being’ that we are all called to is dynamic and powerful and very now. But you cannot be of the world and hope to find this. You must master being in the world and not being of the world at the same time. Crucial difference in life goals. When that contradiction is mastered, being in the world all of the time, and yet being radically different in real time, you are able to get started on a new journey - into the far country.  

It starts with turning the values of the world upside down and experiencing and showing that the values you hold to can work. It continues with showing that even the very seeming material and technological truths of the world can and will give way to a greater truth – that which comes from God Almighty. And it gives you control and power. First, over your own sphere. Then over the borders around you that are part of you, And finally, beyond those borders. Start small and keep growing. With the exception of a known few and possibly an unknown many, Christians have never really gotten into this, and so, standing on the sidelines as it were, have been unable to make the world a better place. Much easier to just talk about Jesus. Jesus’ calling to us got downgraded by us into socio-political work. Talking about Jesus and celebrating Jesus will not get us into the Kingdom. Nor will fighting in the name of Jesus. Jesus is a change agent, but of a very different kind. As Jesus said, you will be able to do all that I do, and more. Not said lightly, not to be taken lightly. What the Christian tradition has done since the time of Jesu has been to create a religious community of faith, belief and worship. Nothing wrong with that. Life changing on a global scale? Nope. Not even on a communal scale, falling upon division after division.

You could say that this kind of movement begins with Philippians and the mind of Christ and ends with a new beginning with Colossians and the prototokos objective. Not a concept. Just an ubermensch type of direction. Beyond the norm.  Dangerous term, that one. Started with the political philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and got misinterpreted into something else. The supremacy of one type of ethnicity over all others. And some maniacs used it big time. And some still do. 

But in God’s eyes, push beyond Psalm 8, beyond David’s self- inflicted limits, and into Jesus. There is compassion, humility, a strange and bewildering honesty and integrity totally unlike the norm. And then, the exercise of power over. How so? Because you have become part of the Kingdom. Never power over, never for your own purposes. But always a power available in seeking the good of others, and sometimes for yourself so that you may continue seeking the good of others. Very fascinating.  Then the notions of how you will die and when you will die no longer bother you. You have travelled beyond them. And you might even get a sense of them.

That’s the gist of it. The specifics are all in the Bible, but they must be identified and worked through against the temptations that threaten to keep us where we are, limited, tight, painful, unfree. That is the journey before us. That is what Jacob’s Ladder asks us to start climbing towards, now.

So we have started the journey with what we have overviewed briefly, and beginning next week, step by step, we go through the detail.  Through the history of the Old Covenant and the key lessons that it offers on what can be gleaned of salvation; and through its primary characters. David, who soared in faith but fell because of lust. Solomon, who grew greatly in wisdom but fell because of wealth. And so forth. Into Elijah, who made an axe float, among other things. And Elisha, both forerunners of what Jesus would demonstrate as the power of the Kingdom within, amongst and around us.

This stuff is only for the serious seekers amongst us and not for social light-hearted gatherings. Just for those who truly seek the Kingdom now. More than anything else. And there are forces aligned against us. Must be aware of that. Not for nothing did Jesus say if the world hates me it will hate you.

For years, we have been led through little else than going from colonial to corporate exploitation of all of God’s ordinary people on God’s good earth everywhere. As one astronaut very insightfully said, we prioritize economic growth at the expense of the natural systems that sustain us. 

Not for nothing did Jim Wallis publish The False White Gospel last year. That’s the ‘Gospel’ that just talks and has nothing to offer except a nebulous salvation of accepting Jesus as Savior, having your sins forgiven, and going to heaven when you die; and of a certain type of emotional feelgood experience; with, on the other side, the familiar comfort of a tradition that has always been in various stages of confusion and division. And still is.

Ritual, when you think of it carefully, is precious little beyond magical aspiration and incantation. It makes no real-life difference. Same with custom and tradition. We must exceed their limits. They are not bad aspects of life, just badly limited. We read from print and declare the mighty word of God. But the Word of God is weird, and will lend itself only according to how close we are to Jesus and what we intend to accomplish; the printed word is a printed word, only representative; the real WORD is a living sound energy, filled with God’s creative power, that accomplishes Gods will.

Not for nothing has Walter Brueggemann written about white hegemonic biblical interpretation. Both Jim and Walter are speaking of a leadership grouping that has decided what a thing should be. Not God’s way. And commonsense will tell us that the academic study of the Bible is never needed in the Kingdom of God. Just the grace, mercy and power of the one God demonstrated in our lives. Stay well and be at peace. God walks with you. Always, G.

The blog add is dreliatjacobsladder.blogspot.com

As I've said, this is just sharing; no intention to seek donations, form a church, adopt some political mission etc. This is just a fellowship of seekers on a journey....