I got an “A” on my research paper for my Genesis-Joshua class with Reformed Seminary (virtual). I haven’t gotten an “A” on anything since high school and that was so rare as to be almost nonexistent; so I’m pretty tickled.

It might be overkill, but I’ve decided to post the full text of my paper here. Can you make it to the end? Enjoy.

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The concept of keeping covenant with God seems to be one not much considered by the modern Christian. Yet the Bible demonstrates in its pages that the idea of a covenant with God was that which guided the patriarch’s and the early believers’ relationship with the Almighty. It may be said that without a covenant there can be no relationship with God.

There are many definitions of covenant used by theologians to describe this important idea. Each definition offers valuable insight into the concept of what a covenant is. The Hebrew word for covenant, b’rith, denotes “a legally binding obligation” (Tenny, p.1001). The obligation of the covenant was far reaching beyond simply the person who made the covenant with God. As one example, when God made his covenant with Abraham he not only bound Abraham to the covenant, but he also bound his offspring who were yet to be born (Genesis 17:10). “Clearly a b’rith is a legal kind of arrangement, a formal disposition of a binding nature. At the heart of a b’rith is an act of commitment and the customary oath-form of this commitment reveals the religious nature of the transaction. The b’rith arrangement is no mere secular contract but rather belongs to the sacred sphere of divine witness and enforcement” (Kline, accessed online 8/7/09).

Because the covenant is enacted by God we may infer that its nature is always permanent. “It denotes, therefore, an irrevocable decision, which cannot be cancelled by anyone” (Brown, p.365). God binds not just man through the covenant process, but he also binds himself. Man’s offspring are bound generation after generation but God has no such offspring in the same sense that man has multiple generations of offspring; therefore we can say that when God initiates a covenant relationship he does so with permanent intentions. “A covenant is an unchangeable, divinely imposed legal agreement between God and man that stipulates the conditions of their relationship” (Grudem, p.515).

Robertson’s definition of covenant may be best. “A covenant is a bond in blood sovereignly administered. When God enters into a covenant relationship with men, he sovereignly institutes a life-and-death bond. A covenant is a bond in blood, or a bond of life and death, sovereignly administered” (Robertson, p.4). It is this definition, which takes into account the process of “cutting” a covenant. “The phrase ‘to cut a covenant’ seems to arise from symbolical actions by which the parties concerned passed through ‘cut up’ corpses of animals…It implied, not an ‘extension of blood-brotherhood’ but rather a threat of similar dismemberment for the one who violated the agreement” (Tenney, p.1002). Additionally, the animals were not only dismembered as in the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15:9-10), but it takes into account the blood that was shed in the covenant as a type for the blood shed by Christ. When God promised redemption for Adam and Eve he shed the blood of an animal in atonement for their sin (Genesis 3:21). When he covenanted with Noah sacrifices were also made (Genesis 8:20-21). These events foreshadowed the coming of Christ who initiated the New Covenant with his own blood (Luke 22:20).

The Basics of Covenant Fidelity

Keeping covenant fidelity is an act of the whole person, not simply a matter of outward behaviors. Deuteronomy, which is viewed as a covenant renewal document (Dillard and Longman, p.92), lays the groundwork for covenant fidelity in Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God and with all your heart and all your soul and with all your might.” Elsewhere, keeping a covenant and loving God from the heart are inseparably linked by application, such as in the case of King Josiah of whom it is said he “made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book” (II Chronicles 34:31). Breaking the covenant takes into account more than outward behaviors. One may break the covenant in thoughts and feelings as well as outward actions (Exodus 20:17), though clearly the full weight of breaking the covenant comes through outward actions, which reflect the pre-existing condition of the heart and mind.

Unlike man, who can break the covenant, God is always faithful to his covenants. We see this declaration in several Old Testament examples where God “remembers” his covenant with a person and initiates action in faithful keeping with his side of the covenant. After the waters of the flood had receded God declared that he would look upon the rainbow he put in the clouds and by looking would remember his covenant with all living creatures (Genesis 9:13-17).

In declaring the curses of disobedience to the covenant, God stated in advance that after times of disciplining Israel that, “I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land” (Leviticus 26:42). Indeed, it was because God remembered his covenant with Abraham that he initiated actions to save Israel from Egyptian slavery (Exodus 2:24-25). God’s promise to keep a line of kingly succession in David’s family provides another example of his covenant faithfulness.

Therefore, keeping the covenant is directly related to more than simply keeping the details of the law, rather, it is related to keeping the law from the heart, from the very innermost desires of the person. This kind of expression is similar to a marriage in that the deepest commitment is the surrender of the heart from one person to another. It comes as no surprise then that marital language is used when describing man’s habit of breaking covenant with God. “For their heart was not steadfast toward Him, nor were they faithful in His covenant” (Psalm 78:37). “Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number” (Jeremiah 2:32). Herein we see that the relationship of covenant fidelity is both legal and relational. One keeps covenant with God by remaining faithful in the relationship, obeying God’s commands. So too the covenant bond may be violated relationally. As already stated, a covenant establishes the parameters of the relationship between God and man.

The Rewards of Covenant Fidelity

True covenant fidelity is heartfelt faithfulness to the terms of the covenant. With covenant fidelity comes blessings from God. In fact virtually all covenants have blessings that God would provide if one were faithful to the covenant. Blessings for covenant fidelity were provided in the covenant with Noah when God declared covenant protection for the earth and its inhabitants (Genesis 9:11). God also declared blessings of multiplication through the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12:2-3; 15:1, 17:4-8). A comprehensive set of “blessings” for covenant faithfulness were provided in Deuteronomy 28:1-14. Even God’s covenant with David contained provisions for blessings (I Chronicles 17:8-15).

Interestingly the blessings of the covenants all seem to be predicated upon ideas of multiplication. The first notion of the blessing of multiplication is found under the Adamic administration: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). This provision was carried over to the covenant with Noah: “As for you, be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 9:7). Abraham also received the form of this blessing, though stated differently: “I will make you a great nation” (Genesis 12:2). After God declared to Abraham his blessing of “Your reward shall be very great,” the conversation turned immediately to Abraham’s offspring (Genesis 15:1-5). Under the Mosaic administration the blessings in Deuteronomy 28 for covenant faithfulness were also multiplication oriented. God promised blessings on offspring: man and beast (v.4) and barns (v.8), all three were repeated (v.11), and followed by a declaration of economic blessing (v.12). The Davidic covenant also contained a form of multiplication blessing when God mentioned David’s descendants (I Chronicles 17:11). Even the New Covenant under Christ uses the multiplication motif found in Christ’s command to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). The blessing of multiplication is squarely intended to multiply people who will be part of the covenant community. The blessings are therefore only available to those who are under the covenant.

Man’s Inadequacy for Covenant Fidelity

It has already been noted that keeping and breaking a covenant is both a relational act as well as a legal one. God always keeps his covenant in relation to himself and to people under the covenant. God is, by nature, a covenant keeper. “When God says, ‘you must,’ he is not saying, ‘My will is dependent on your action.’ God does not say, ‘You must do this, and if you don’t, I won’t do what I’ve promised.’ God does not act like that. God is sovereign. God is going to do what he will do” (Boice, p.582). God does not go back on his promises because he cannot commit the act of covenant violation. It might be said that God cannot do this because he does not have the ability to violate his own nature. To do so would be to deny the eternality of his nature of truth. “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good” (Leviticus 23:19).

While it may be rightly said that God is always a covenant keeper, we can say with equal force that, by nature, man is a covenant breaker in both heart and action. Man’s proclivity toward covenant violation is profiled heavily in the scriptures. Moses warned Israel about breaking God’s law as an act of the heart when he said, “If your soul abhors My ordinances so as not to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant…” (Leviticus 26:15).

Solomon warned in his temple prayer that, “There is no man who does not sin” (I Kings 8:46). Solomon repeated this charge in Ecclesiastes 7:20, “Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.” A detailed account of Israel’s covenant breaking is found in II Kings, which recounts the captivity of the northern kingdom. The chapter goes into lengthy detail as to why God gave Israel over to Assyrian captivity. “They rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers and His warnings with which He warned them. And they followed vanity and became vain…They forsook all the commandments of the Lord their God” ( II Kings 17:15-16). “In his proclamation of judgment and doom upon the nation as a punishment for apostasy and willful sin, Jeremiah was reminding his reluctant and hostile hearers that they had consistently disregarded the obligations of the Sinai covenant. The moral and ethical nature of God demanded that his rights in the covenant agreement be observed” (Harrison, p.139).

Covenant breaking by forsaking the commandments of God (the Law) is also a theme for the Apostle Paul. In his discussion of the role of the Law in faith Paul declares, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The picture being painted by Paul, as well as Solomon is that man is a sinner by nature, one who habitually breaks covenant if left to his own devices. “Christ the ‘second man’ stepped forward, representing certain sinners who could not themselves keep the covenant…and as the ‘last Adam’ he kept (where Adam had not) all of the requirements of the covenant in their behalf by meeting both the preceptive and penal demands of the covenant of work” (Reymond, p.440).

Where man’s nature is inadequate for keeping the covenant on his own, Christ’s nature is more than adequate to the task. It is only because the Christian has within him the expression of God’s nature through the Holy Spirit that he is able to keep the covenant. This is part of God’s gift to us through the deposit of the Holy Spirit.

The Curses of Covenant Infidelity

Just as covenant keeping resulted in blessings to the obedient, so too covenant breaking resulted in curses upon the Israelites for their unfaithfulness. “The covenant with its stipulations opens up the possibility of transgression and sin, with the consequences of judgment and punishment” (Douglas, p.241). Following the close of the Pentateuch, much of the Old Testament reads like an account of those who broke covenant with God, worshipping idols and committing other acts of sin against God; but not only during the period after the close of Deuteronomy. Indeed, God declared to Adam that if he violated his command regarding the tree of knowledge of good and evil he would fall under the curse of death. “In this statement to Adam about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil there is a promise of punishment for disobedience—death, most fully understood to mean death in an extensive sense, physical, spiritual, and eternal death and separation from God” (Grudem, p.516). Once Adam and Eve had broken the covenant, God declared a series of curses against man and his environment (Genesis 3:14-19). Though God had formerly pronounced a sentence of death for sin, Adam and Eve were spared physical death as God slayed an animal on their behalf, satisfying the penalty of immediate physical death (Genesis 3:21).

“Moses had commenced warning the people that their breaking of the older b’rith could serve only to bring about terror and disaster (Lev. 26:15,16): ‘the vengeance of the covenant’ (v.25), or ‘the curses of the covenant’ (Deut. 29:21; cf. Isa. 24:5, Jer. 11:8). Indeed, almost the entire 800 year course of Israel’s existence as an independent nation in Canaan was marked by God’s continuous and increasingly severe judgments, a course that would terminate only with the destruction of Judah in 586 B.C. and, ultimately, with a superseding of the older testament altogether” (Tenney, p.1012).

It is under the administration of the Mosaic covenant that we see the greatest example of the price for covenant breaking. Following a long history of covenant offenses God finally rolled out his judgment upon Israel and Judah. The writer of II Kings uses what can be described as covenant language and references to justify God’s actions against the northern kingdom. “Now this came about because the sons of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and they had feared other gods” (II Kings 17:7). Notices the usage of the phrase, “Who brought them up out of the land of Egypt.” This directly correlates with Exodus 20:2, “I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” This Exodus passage is the beginning of the covenant declaration in Exodus. The writer makes it clear that the reason for Israel’s exile was the violation of the Mosaic covenant. The curses of covenant infidelity had come upon them (Deuteronomy 28:36 cf. II Kings 17:18,23). These same curses had also come upon Judah (Ii Kings 17:19-20) though their exile happened later through the agency of Babylon.

God’s covenant with David also contained a curses provision, though certainly not as well defined as the previous covenants. The punishment provision in the covenant with David foresaw the disobedience of David’s son and consisted of a simple, “When he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men” (II Samuel 7:14).

Just as the theme of covenant faithfulness seems to include blessings of multiplication, so also the curses seem to carry a theme of exile or death—the very opposite of multiplication. Breaking the Adamic covenant resulted in exile from the garden (Genesis 3:23-24). The punishment in the Noahdic covenant was death (Genesis 9:5-6); but death might also be defined as a form of exile—exile from life. The curse of the Abrahamic covenant was pictured in the theophany passing between the divided animals, illustrating the punishment of dismemberment, in other words, death to the one who would break the covenant. Exile for the breaking of the Mosaic covenant has already been mentioned.

God Takes Responsibility for Covenant Fidelity

In order to be true the covenant it is important that all of the covenant terms be fulfilled. It is not simply the blessings that need fulfillment, but the curses must also be fulfilled. Once God declared curses under the covenant it was only logical that those curses be fulfilled since, by nature, man is a covenant breaker. “By initiating covenants, God never enters into a casual or informal relationship with man. Instead, the implications of his bonds extend to the ultimate issues of life and death” (Robertson, p.7-8). The curses needed fulfilling by man, so that fulfillment came through a man in Jesus Christ. He kept the terms of the covenant, including the curses heaped upon him at his arrest and crucifixion.

As we have already shown, God is by nature a covenant keeper—he always keeps his side of the covenant. But God’s keeping of the covenants goes far beyond simply being faithful to his side. It can be shown that God not only keeps his side, but he also took steps to fulfill man’s side of the covenant. “There is not the slightest suggestion to the effect that the covenant could be annulled by human unfaithfulness or its blessing forfeited by unbelief; the thought of breaking the covenant is inconceivable. The confirmation given is to the opposite effect. In a word, the promise is unconditional” (Murray, accessed online 8/7/09). This must apply not only to the covenant blessings, but to the covenant curses as well.

Though man is by nature a covenant breaker, God demonstrates his mercy and grace by fulfilling the terms of the human side of the covenant. “All that God has done savingly in grace since the revelation of the Abrahamic covenant is the result and product of it…everything that God has done since to the present moment he has done in order to fulfill his covenant to Abraham (and thus his eternal plan of redemption)” (Reymond, p.513). God does this in two ways. First, he took the punishment provisions of the covenants upon himself. Second, he fulfills the terms of the covenant previously assigned to man. He performed both of these through his Son, Jesus Christ. Since the portions of the covenant assigned to man needed fulfillment, it was only logical that it would be through a man, the perfect man, that the covenant requirements should be met. In other words, God takes the responsibility and the punishments of the covenants upon himself, upon our behalf, as if he were the covenant breaker. In virtually all of the covenants there is a hint or foreshadowing of the punishments that would be fulfilled in Christ.

Genesis 3:15 presents a picture of battle between the seed of the woman, who would be Christ, and Satan. God declares, “He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” This is the first indication in scripture that a Savior would come, and that that Savior would be injured. Just as God slayed an animal for Adam and Eve, so also we see a picture of the coming of Christ. God clothed Adam and Eve, covering their shame. Christ, it might be said, clothes our shame of sin through his blood.

Under the covenant with Noah we see an even more interesting picture that God would take the punishments for sins upon himself instead of making man suffer for his own sin. In the declaration of the second covenant God established a bow in the clouds as part of his promise not to again destroy the earth through a global flood. Many commentators have noted that when the bow appears it is at rest. It does not point down toward man. It indicated that God was at peace and his wrath had been fulfilled. However, this only paints half of the prophetic picture. The bow is not merely at rest, rather, it is pointing upward as if to target God. Herein is a picture that God would pay the penalty for shedding man’s blood (Genesis 9:6). Most interesting is the language used to describe this curse. The text does not say if man sheds man’s blood, instead it indicates whoever sheds man’s blood. This is not to claim that God was guilty of sin when he killed the earth’s population through the flood. Rather it is an indication that man would point his bow toward the Almighty. In Christ, God accepted this punishment. The curse of capital punishment fell upon him.

There is an even more dramatic picture of God fulfilling the terms of the covenant on man’s behalf in the story of Abraham. “As Genesis 15:17,18 dramatically puts it, God committed himself to the covenantal threat of self-dismemberment; and thus God saves ‘because of the blood of my b’rith’ (Zechariah 9:11)” (Tenney, p.1003). The notion of dismemberment should not be taken over-literally. We can find examples of covenant breaking where dismemberment was visited upon the covenant breaker, such as Jezebel (II Kings 9:33-37). However, the emphasis here is probably on death. If we view Genesis 15 prophetically then God intended to take responsibility for the death of the covenant breaker.

Jesus Christ is the one who fulfilled the punishment terms of the covenant with Abraham. While he was not dismembered, he did suffer death as if he were the covenant breaker. In this way we see that God not only fulfilled the terms of his side of the covenant, he also fulfilled the terms of man’s side of the covenant as both the seed that receives the blessings (Galatians 3:16) and the covenant violator who must be punished.

The covenant under Moses also contained provisions for punishment that required fulfillment. Man could not endure these by himself. Therefore, God stepped in to take them on the covenant breaker’s behalf. “…the peace of the covenant was to come through the infliction of the curses on the Redeemer-Servant, sacrificed for the sins of God’s people” (Kline, accessed online 8/7/09). Thus, the covenant keeper suffered on behalf of the covenant breaker.

The account of God’s covenant with David also features a small declaration of punishment. “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men” (II Samuel 7:14). Certainly Jesus committed no sin, rather, he was made in the “likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans 8:3) to be the one upon whom God’s wrath would be placed. He would, literally, suffer “the strokes of the sons of men” (II Samuel 7:14, cf. Isaiah 53:8, I Peter 2:24).

The exception to curses under covenants is only found in the new covenant under Christ. There are no curses pronounced under the new covenant because the new covenant provides for the curses to be wiped away through the blood of Christ. There can be no permanent punishment for sin where the blood of Christ has been applied. This does not mean that God does not disciple his children when they sin. Rather, it means that the punishment of eternal death is erased. There will be no exile from God for the believer because Christ suffered both death and being “cut off” (Matthew 27:46) through the redemptive work of the cross.

Conclusion

Taken together the covenants are a unity. The principles upon which God governs his relationship with man are the same from covenant to covenant. The terms of the covenant(s) are so important to God that he took it upon himself to fulfill all of the terms of the covenants, including the curses. It is therefore required of man that we also fulfill the terms of the covenant under Christ. In him we find the fulfillment of God’s promises. It is he whom we must imitate in covenant faithfulness.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Boice, James Montgomery. Genesis: A New Beginning. Baker Books, 1998.

Brown, Colin. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Zondervan Corporation, 1975, 1986.

Dillard, Raymond B. and Tremper Longman III. An Introduction to the Old Testament,. Zondervan Publishing, 1994.

Douglas, J.D. New Bible Dictionary. InterVarsity Press, 1982.

Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. InterVarsity Press and Zondervan Publishing House, 1994.

Harrison, R.K. Jeremiah & Lamentations. InterVarsity Press, 1973.

Kline, Meredith, ed. C.F. Pfeiffer and E.F. Harrison. Deuteronomy. Wycliffe Bible Commentary, by. Chicago: Moody Press, 1962. Accessed online http://www.covopc.org/Kline/Kline_on_Deuteronomy.html, 8/7/09.

Kline, Meredith. Kingdom Prologue, “What Is a Covenant?” Accessed online 8/7/09, http://www.upper-register.com/papers/what_is_covenant.html, 2007.

Murray, John. The Covenant of Grace: A Biblico-Theological Study. Accessed online, http://www.lgmarshall.org/Reformed/murray_gracecovenant.html, 8/7/09.

Reymond, Dr. Robert L. Systematic Theology. Thomas Nelson Inc., 1998.

Robertson, O. Palmer. The Christ of the Covenants. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1980.

Tenney, Merrill C. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. Zondervan Corporation, 1975, 1976.

A short blurb in today’s UB Post that has some wondering if religious freedom in Mongolia may encounter problems.

The Mongolian immigration authority is examining religious missionaries in Ulaanbaatar with the help of the Metropolitan Police Department and General Taxation Office in regard of recent complaints lodged against Christian activities.

The authorities said any temple or church that breached Mongolian law will see forced closure. In Ulaanbaatar only, there are around 180 religious churches and temples operating. Around 90 of them are Christian and 60 of them Buddhist, and the rest of shamanistic practice.

I’m going through Joshua in my current seminary studies. I was struck this morning, Father’s Day, by this passage from the commentary, Josha: No Falling Words. Enjoy.

“It’s too bad much of the church has lost this vision of God or Christ as the warrior who fights for his people. Too many of us regard this conception as substandard, by which we mean it does not fit our sentimental twentieth-century graven images of what God ought to be like. The imagery seems too violent. And we do the same thing for the Lord Jesus, with perhaps not a little help from church school materials. The popular image of Jesus is that he not only kind and tender but also soft and prissy, as though Jesus comes to us reeking of hand cream. Such a Jesus can hardly steel a soul that is daily assualted by the enemy…No mild God or soft Jesus can give his people hope. It is only as we know the warrior of Israel who fights for us (and sometimes without us) that we have hopeof triumphing in the muck of life.”

Taken from Joshua: No Falling Words, Dale Ralph Davis, page 82.

My weekly teaching program, Together Through The Bible returns to air in September, but the production on next season’s programs goes on now through the end of summer.

Yesterday I was given the first cut of episode one for the second season. We built a new set and added new localized elements to the program to spruce it up a bit.

During the first season of TTTB the program was often one of our most watched shows on Eagle TV. We’re hoping for a repeat of that when season two goes on the air this fall. Meanwhile, we’ll be posting each program as it’s completed, for Internet viewing before the on air release. Take a peak at episode one, below. Comments welcome.

Together Through The Bible 2×01 from Tom Terry on Vimeo.

What does it mean when we say someone is “spiritual?”

What is a spiritual person?

What is spirituality?

Comments or email welcome.

Came across this today while surfing ConversantLife.com. Great piece. Take a read.

I want to point out two things: first, there is no God in Buddhism. And secondly, there is no grace in Buddhism….

The writer, drawn to the presence of grace in Christianity, wanted to find such grace in Buddhism. He tried hard, and gave many suggestions about where grace might be found in Buddhism. But then the whole thing fell apart at the end of the article, when he wrote this:

“So you see, we have many examples of “grace” – the big difference in Buddhism is that it is not “unmerited” as in Christianity. As Pema Chodron is so fond of pointing out, us westerners often operate from a sense of poverty. We feel we are not deserving of this or that – and I believe this is especially true when it comes to grace.”

See the whole article here.

A Barna research report this week revealed that 58% of American Christians don’t believe the Holy Spirit exists. “Fifty-eight percent strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that the Holy Spirit is ‘a symbol of God’s power or presence but is not a living entity.’”[1] Interestingly, the same survey revealed that about 60% of American Christians do not believe Satan exists.

I suppose you could argue that if you think Satan doesn’t exist then what do you need the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit for? We can also argue that it doesn’t matter if you believe Satan exists or not. Without the Holy Spirit you are traveling up temptation’s raging river without a paddle—or a boat for that matter.

I’ve long thought that the problem many people have with understanding Who the Holy Spirit is, and His role, can be boiled down to our description of Him. The Bible always describes God’s character in human terms we can understand from our already pre-existing relationships. Two examples: When we call God, “Father,” we can understand that because we associate the term, “Father,” with that which is already familiar. We know what a father is and what his role is. The same can be true when we call Jesus the “Son of God.” We already have in our minds what a son is and what his relationship to his father is. These anthropomorphic descriptions of God’s nature, in part, aid our understanding of who God is.

But when we come to the descriptive term, “Holy Spirit,” we encounter a problem. It’s not like the term “Holy Spirit” is similar to “mother,” or “Father,” or “Son.” We have trouble wrapping our minds around how it works. We wonder exactly how the Spirit of God is related to God when we can’t picture him in anthropomorphic terms we already understand. The Holy Spirit is God, but He’s not the Father and He’s not the Son, and He’s not described with anthropomorphic terms. So how does that work exactly?

The Bible tells us quite clearly that the Holy Spirit is a person, with attributes of personality, and He is deity, co-equal with the Father and the Son. But the term, “Holy Spirit,” seems impersonal as opposed to titles like Father and Son. Maybe it’s because we think of the term “Spirit” like an essence instead of a person. Yet we forget that when we die our spirit enters God’s presence. I.E., we enter God’s presence. The spirit is us. So why don’t we take that thinking and apply it to God in the sense of personhood and personality? The Holy Spirit is God.

It’s troubling enough when a majority doesn’t believe in the Evil One. You can’t defend yourself against an enemy you don’t believe exists. But when you regulate the Holy Spirit to nonexistence in your belief system then you’ve wiped away the only source of power you have for defeating the enemy’s schemes. American Christianity is in a mess of trouble when it doesn’t recognize the existence of an essential member of the Godhead.

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1. Most U.S. Christians Don’t Believe Satan, Holy Spirit Exist, Christianpost.com, April 13, 2009.

To continue with my theme from the last week’s series of blogs about the resurrection, there’s one more entry I’d like to post about what the resurrection does for us.

My most recent post was The Revolutionary Resurrection. In that post was a section called, “The Resurrection Reverses the Garden Curse.” I’d like to dig a little more deeply into that garden.

There are four things that Adam and Eve’s first sin brought to mankind that the resurrection of Jesus begins to reverse.

• Fear
• Death
• Works
• Slavery

Each of these four things didn’t exist prior to Adam and Eve’s sin, and each of these four things were dealt with by Jesus upon his bodily resurrection.

Fear to Courage
God warned the first couple about the effects of sin, should they engage in it. “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). Sure enough after both of them ate from the forbidden tree, they immediately began to experience sin’s effects. One of those effects was fear: “They heard the sound of ?a?the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ He said, “??I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid…” (Genesis 3:8-10).

Jesus resurrection from the grave began the process of reversing our fear of God[1] to bring us courage when we face the Almighty. “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you ?have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ (Romans 8:15).

Death to Life
The separation of the spirit from the body is another terrible curse that God warned our first parents about. Man was made a physical being and is not complete without his physicality. Sin brings death, but Jesus’ resurrection begins the reversal process from this terrible curse by guaranteeing us a resurrection from the dead like Jesus’ resurrection. “For ?a?if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be ?in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:5).

Works to Grace
Man’s natural inclination is to work for his salvation. Every religious system in existence shares one thing in common. Whatever their belief about eternal destiny, the religious adherent must earn their place in Heaven, or nirvana, or whatever the belief may be. Christianity is unique in that Jesus paid the penalty for our sin and grants us eternal life with him purely by unmerited favor and grace.

We see a taste of the works mentality in Adam and Eve right after they committed their first sin. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings” (Genesis 3:7).

The attitude of man when recognizing his shame is always to find a way to cover his shame by his own efforts. But even Adam and Eve recognized that their efforts were not good enough. For after sewing fig leaves together to cover themselves they still felt the need to hide: “I was naked so I hid myself” (Genesis 3:10).

Jesus resurrection provides a wonderful reversal from the works mentality. “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus…For ??sin shall not ?be master over you, for ?you are not under law but ?under grace” (Romans 6:10-11,14).

Slavery to Freedom
Adam and Eve’s sin forever made them slaves to sin. “Through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners” Romans 5:19). But Jesus’ death for sin provided forgiveness and his resurrection provides power for a new life. “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was ?b?raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life…knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our ?body of sin might be ?done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin” (Romans 6:4-5,6-7).

Conclusion
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus provides far more to the Christian than we can outline here. Suffice it to say that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides us with real power to experience God, know him, and please him.

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[1] The Bible often talks about fearing the Lord. However, fear of the Lord in this context notes respect for great power. The fear of Genesis 3:10 is nothing more than terror.

As we celebrate Easter, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I want to offer up five significant thoughts about what the resurrection of Jesus Christ provides to us. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is far more significant than any other event in history. While most people tend to give more attention to Christmas, I’ve always felt that the resurrection was of greater importance. If there had been no resurrection there would be no Christmas celebration; the resurrection gives Christmas its meaning.

Aside from Christmas, the resurrection provides five things that make Christianity stand out as unique, remarkable, and superior to every other philosophy and faith.

THE RESURRECTION REVERSES THE GARDEN CURSE

We don’t often think of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden when we think of Easter. But the scriptures actually tie the two together. The first pronouncement that man would die was in Genesis 2:17. God warned Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” After their disobedience, in Genesis 3:19 God confirmed the consequences of their sin: “By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

From that point on all men were subjected to the punishment of death for the disobedience of sin: “Through ?one man sin entered into the world, and ?death through sin, and ?so death spread to all men” (Romans 5:12). But Jesus, as the “last Adam” of I Corinthians 15:45, negates the final effects of the curse. Though we will one day all partake of death, the death of the Christian is only a temporary condition while we await our own resurrection that will give us a body like his: “Just as we have ?borne the image of the earthy, ?we will also bear the image of the heavenly” (I Corinthians 15:49).

THE RESURRECTION JUSTIFIES THE BELIEVER

Justification is the pronouncement by God that he has accepted Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross as the punishment for our sin. This acceptance by God results in the freeing of the believer from the terminal consequences of our sin. Romans 4:25 tells us that Jesus “was raised because of our justification.” No Christian need ever be concerned with his or her eternal destiny. The resurrection of Jesus Christ makes our destiny a surety. We will enjoy eternal life with Christ in our own resurrected, transformed bodies.

THE RESURRECTION TRANSFORMS

We already know from I Corinthians 15 that we will receive resurrected, transformed bodies during the resurrection of the righteous. But we sometimes forget that the resurrection provides transformation in this earthly life. We have two dramatic examples in the scripture of this very fact.

Following his death, Jesus’ disciples hid themselves away from the Jewish authorities. Their hopes for the coming kingdom seemed crushed following the crucifixion. Yet when the risen Lord Jesus showed himself to them, they were radically changed. This was not simple case of resuscitation. Jesus was horribly mangled from beatings and the cruelty of the cross. The flesh of his back had been ripped away. His body had been beaten, swollen, bruised, and bloodied. His death was attested to by soldiers, his friends, and religious leaders. A sword pierced his side, rupturing his heart. So when the disciples saw Jesus standing before them on the third day they could not help but be transformed. They had seen a man destroyed as well as dead, and suddenly there he was standing before them, restored.

The result for the disciples was a transformation from fear to courage. Each of them took the message of the risen Jesus with them. They had become dynamic missionaries, serving for years, with each of them dying a martyr’s death proclaiming the risen Savior.

The Apostle Paul is another significant example of the power of the resurrection. Paul, in a frenzy of murderous rage persecuted Christians from place to place until the risen Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Paul’s response to seeing the risen Jesus? “Immediately he began to proclaim Jesus ?in the synagogues, ?saying, “He is ?the Son of God” (Acts 9:20).

THE RESURRECTION IS REVOLUTIONARY

In our English Bibles we read the word “resurrection” and think of nothing more than a rising up from the dead. But in Greek there was more than one word used that we translate as “resurrection” or “raised.” One of those words has as a root meaning to rise to revolt, as in political revolution. How appropriate is such a word! The person who embraces Christ is doing nothing less than experiencing a revolution in his soul, rejecting the old sinful nature for the transformation of a new nature. The Scriptures say that since our old self was crucified with Christ we are freed from our sin (Romans 6:5-11). “Therefore do not let sin ?reign in your mortal body” (Romans 6:12). The Christian is to experience nothing less than a revolution of character having “rescued us from the ??domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of ??His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13).

THE RESURRECTION PROVIDES PURPOSE AND MEANING TO LIFE

Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ Christianity is meaningless. “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and ??if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain…and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; ??you are still in your sins” (I Corinthians 15:13-14,17).

How dreadful life would be without the sure hope of the resurrection. Knowing our future state, that of bodily resurrection to become whole people the way God intended, gives us purpose and direction for life.

Nothing else in life offers the hope, purpose, and meaning that the resurrection of Jesus does. The atheist mistakenly looks to a future of nonexistence. The Buddhist hopes for a better rebirth and nonexistent nirvana. The deceived Muslim awaits his virgins. None of these offer the hope that the resurrection of Jesus Christ brings.