John 3:3Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
If you have come this far, you are clearly interested in seeing the kingdom of God. Jesus said that to see the kingdom, one must be born again. This experience ushers us to the priesthood of Jesus after the order of Melchizedek. Associated with this priesthood is the law that is configured in a way that works in your favor.
The law of the priesthood after the order of Aaron is the law of sin and death. That law sets you up for failure. If you disobey once you die. The law associated with the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek sets you up for success. Obey it once and you live. Gentiles had no priesthood. They were lawless. Without a law there is no sin, but neither is there righteousness. Righteousness is required for everlasting life.
Let’s make sure you are on the path that leads to life.
Romans 4:12and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
There are steps of faith that bring us into the New Covenant. I will first explain each of the steps and describe the work each step performs. Then I will show how Abraham, the Father of our faith, walked in them to become the Father of our faith.
The first step is to cleanse sin from the heart. The next step is to get out from under the law of sin and death. The final step is to obey the first commandment to have it counted as righteousness.
To make sense of this, I need to begin with a little background.
Matthew 12:33Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. 34O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 35A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. 36But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. 37For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. (KJV)
On the day of judgment, we will give our “account” to God. Rather than assign a definition to the word, account, I would like you to picture what the account represents. As I further develop the model, you will see the account in the diagram, but for now, I want you to picture it in your mind as I describe it.
The Greek word for account is logon. It is a log, like a database that has tables bursting with data. God is the database administrator, and he is the only one that has read/write access to the account. He can run queries to search its content. He can insert records into the account. He can delete records. The information contained in the account will be investigated as I develop the model. Our account is located, not in the mind of God, but on the tables of our heart.
On judgment day we will present our account to God. The “words” by which we will be justified or condemned is the content of our account. The Greek word for account is logon. The Greek word for words is logōn. Logōn is the content of the account, logon. God remembers our sin by writing it in our account. Under the New Covenant, God said he would remember our sin no more. The New Covenant is where we want to be.
Our account contains all the admissible evidence that can be used for us, or against us. What is in our account will determine our eternal fate.
Jeremiah 17:1“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars,
This is the condition of the heart of a person who is under the law of sin and death. On judgment day, sins found written on the heart would be grounds for condemnation.
This sounds bad, but it turns out to be a good thing.
Life is union with God, death is separation from God. Everlasting life is uninterrupted union with God. Everlasting life is not just about longevity, but it is also about continuity. When a Jewish person sinned, they could not come into God’s presence without first presenting a blood sacrifice, and that sacrifice was sufficient until they sinned again.
The goal is to get out from under the law of sin and death, and come under the law of the Spirit of life.
The steps of faith of Abraham bring us under the priesthood of Melchizedek, the king of righteousness and the prince of peace. Whether we had been under the priesthood of Aaron, or no priesthood at all, we were all under the curse of sin.
God will not take up residence with anyone who has sin in their account. This is a problem, and the first step of faith deals with this problem. This is the step of forgiveness, and forgiveness is another term I would like you to picture. On your heart are records marked as sin. God forgives sin by deleting those records.
Hebrews 9:22Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Sins are forgiven by the shedding of blood. For God to dwell in Abraham, his account must be free from sin. This was the step of faith that served to clear his account of sin.
Genesis 15:8But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.
The Lord walked Abraham through each step. This step deleted the sins written in Abraham’s account. At this point, Abraham had cleared the first hurdle, but the problem with the blood sacrifice is that it only clears the sins that are on the account. You cannot delete records that will be written in the future. Under the law of Moses, the Jews had to repeat the process every time they came into the presence of God. It was not that the blood sacrifice could not cleanse sin, but it could not bring “everlasting” life in terms of continuity. Recall that life is union with God and death is separation from God. If you are under the law of sin and death, you life (union with God) is interrupted.
For the moment
Sin is a word that is laden with baggage. Remember how I said that words get their meanings from the things they represent instead of their numerous definitions? Often the definition assigned does not do a word justice. This is one of those words. At this stage, the kingdom model has not been developed to the point where I can show you the thing sin represents. If I simply tell you what sin is without showing you what it is, I would be violating my principles, guilty of the same things I am against. We will get there, but suffice it to say that sin is not what it has been purported to be, especially for this exercise. I am not taking you on a guilt trip. That is not where we are going.
Although this verse is speaking specifically of Jews, it does not exclude Gentiles. We are all born with a heart of stone. Allow me to support this claim. The Bible says that salvation is now available to everyone, Jew and Gentile. One of the footsteps involved in entering the kingdom is when he takes the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh. At some point in this discourse, you will appreciate the significance of this, and it will hit you like a ton of bricks – it did me. If it has not hit you yet, don’t worry, it is early in the process. Wait for it.
So, our “sins” are written on the tables of our heart.
Although we think of sin as being a violation of the law, sin existed before there was a law. Sin is everything we do apart from God. If we are not united with God (God with us), we do not have the option of doing things with God, which is the definition of righteousness. Recall that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not just evil. Things that would be considered good by a casual observer are still sin because we did them apart from God. The Greek word for sin supports this concept.
The next step was to get Abraham out from under the law of sin and death, and bring him under the law of the Spirit of life.
Romans 7:1Or do you not know, brothers— for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? (KJV)
To get out from under the law, to be free from the law, one must die. Yikes. Luckily, there are shadows of death that qualify, and Abraham took this step by one of them. Recall
Psalm 23:4Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
The evil David is talking about is sin. If God is with me, there is no evil in my account, and there is no need to fear it. David had experienced his shadow of death. Abraham had a different shadow of death.
Genesis 15:11And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.
Abraham fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, he was no longer under the law of sin and death. He was under the priesthood of Melchizedek, and the law of the Spirit of life.
Having a heart free from sin is necessary for salvation, but not sufficient. There is another step to be taken. Justification requires righteousness. In fact, the Greek words for righteousness and justify are different forms of the same word, like noun and verb.
Genesis 15:6And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
New Wine 