The Everlasting Covenant

The Covenant of God to redeem mankind, as presented throughout history.

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There were several issues in the Early Christian Church.  First of all, the disciples were not ready to understand Jesus' message until after the resurredtion. Now that He had ascended to heaven, the Holy Spirit was sent to lead them to a more complete understanding.

    "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." (John 16:12).

The early sermons in Acts illustrates this growth in understanding of the apostles.

The church was bound together by their first love.  However it was still a collection of human beings.  An issue arose between the Greek speaking and the Hebrew Christians over the division of food provided to the widows. This was solved by the appointment of deacons, with very good results.

Persecution was a severe problem, and the church was scattered from Jerusalem;  which turned out to be a benefit in taking the message to new places.

Then there was the persistent problem with the Judaizers:

All aspects of the ceremonial law in some way pointed forward to Jesus Christ. This was especially true of the Levitical priesthood.  A priest is one who stands between the people and God.  He represents God to the people, and the people to God.  In this way a priest is a type of Jesus Christ.

After Jesus' death on Calvary and His resurrection, He ascended to Heaven to enter in a special way His heavenly priesthood. Instead of going through sacrificial animals for the forgiveness of sins, the sinner may directly approach Jesus on the throne of grace.

For Jewish Christians it was difficult to give up a tradition lasting 1500 years. The ceremonial law was so much a part of their lives and how they identified themselves as Jews.  This issue was addressed by Paul repeatedly in his epistles, in his emphasis on grace and belief in Jesus Christ.  It is these new understandings that make up a large part of Christian belief today.

After Paul and Barnabas had made journeys to take the message to the gentiles, the issue arose as to how much of the ceremonial law the new gentile Christians were expected to follow. This was addressed by conferences in Jerusalem and at Antioch. An agreement was reached that gentiles need not follow the ceremonial law except for four issues:  circumcision was not needed, fornication must be dealt with as a sin, they should not eat things offered to idols, and they must not eat blood.

While an agreement was reached, the problem was not solved.  Jewish Christians, called Judaizers, continued to be a problem for many years, even spreading into the Chrstian Churches throughout the Roman Empire.  Much of Paul's writing had to deal with this problem, including the book of Hebrews.

The following articles deal with showing the supremacy of the gospel of Jesus Christ over the keeping the ceremonies.  The ceremonies were important in the past, but were now superceded and fulfilled in Jesus life and true sacrifice on Calvary.
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