3

The New Covenant

Is the Spirit

Paul was on board a ship bound for Rome. He had ap-

pealed to the court of Caesar and was traveling as a prisoner
to be tried. A tremendous storm came up. It had been cloudy
for many days, and because they couldn't see the stars they
got lost. As the storm worsened, they despaired. They were
weeping and losing all hope of life.
But not Paul. He was singing, even though the ship was
sinking.
"How can you sing?" they asked him.
Paul said, "Don't worry. Come on, have something to eat.
Be of good cheer."
"How can we be of good cheer?"
"Last night I was talking with the Lord and He told me
that the ship is going to sink, but we are all going to be saved.
There must be an island around here, and we will be cast on it
alive."
Notice, he didn't say to them, "Be of good cheer. Read
Psalm 23."
No, he said, "The Lord told me that the ship will sink, and
we are all going to be saved."
Paul had the latest ABC news, direct from heaven. He had
a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that meant that he
didn't have to turn to Psalm 23 to know that he was going to
be all right.
30 LIVING WITH JESUS TODAY

A person in whom Christ lives gets up-to-the-minute news.

He sees the Lord doing wonderful things continually. He
doesn't have to read the newspaper all the time to see the
news of what happened yesterday. The newscaster lives with-
in him.
I say this to illustrate a point. Actually, I have a great re-
spect for the Bible, because everything which belongs to Jesus
is always a blessing. There is a sense in which it is never old.
But the Gospels are only a starting point in a relationship
with Jesus, because He still is alive today. The history of His
life is not yet finished.
The first time I read the whole of the New Testament I was
a little boy; I think I was seven or eight years old. When I got
to the last chapter of the book of Acts I was frustrated.
"Where is the rest?" I wanted to know.
The story of Acts finishes where Paul is in the house of ar-
rest. I was disappointed with the ending. I wanted to keep on
reading the rest of the story. Of course, that book will always
be unfinished, because the Lord is still alive and you can't
finish a book about a person who is still alive. How can you
finish a biography of a living person?
So Paul says, "Too much consciousness of Christ in the
flesh can be a hindrance in knowing Him today as the living
person that He is."
This is a problem for us evangelical Christian people. It is
hard for us to know the present-day Lord Jesus Christ be-
cause we have made an idol of the story of His 33 years on
earth almost 2,000 years ago.
Now a knowledge of Christ in the flesh is good. I am not
saying anything against it. And I don't think Paul was speak-
ing against it when he said that he was no longer concerned
about knowing Christ after the flesh. To know Him in the
flesh is good providing you go on knowing Him.
But for Paul, he preferred to know Christ as He is. I have
to say that I would prefer to miss a knowledge of Christ in the
flesh rather than to miss knowing Him as He is now. Of course,
THE NEW COVENANT IS THE SPIRIT 31

we don't need to miss one or the other; we can have both.

A knowledge of the historical Jesus is static, so it doesn't
generate growth. But to know the present-day Lord, that is
dynamic. You know Him, and you go on knowing Him all
the more. You know Him better today than yesterday.

When I talk about knowing Him, I am not referring to

knowing more of the Bible. I have seen people studying the
Bible continually in seminary, but they didn't grow one bit
spiritually. Others, on the other hand, did grow.
The fact that you read the Bible is not in itself a guarantee
that you will grow spiritually.
There are great theologians who know the Bible can help,
but it is not a guarantee. But if you know the Bible and you
also know the present-day Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible can be
a great help.
In the days of the primitive church, the living body of be-
lievers spread around the world. They didn't have the New
Testament yet. They had to rely solely on the living Christ.
They had to depend on Jesus, alone.
My concern today is that perhaps we put too much empha-
sis on our books about the Bible, on the written story of Jesus
in the flesh. So much so that we don't need the present-day
Lord.
Sometimes I think that we might as well tell Him, "Don't
worry, Lord. We have all the sermons You preached when
You were on earth 2,000 years ago. We can also repeat the
stories of the miracles You performed. Stay in heaven. We
really don't need You here."

In the book of Philippians we saw a picture of Christ in His

poorest form, made of no reputation, in the form of a ser-
vant.
It is a wonderful picture, because the poverty of God is
richer than man's finest achievements, the weakness of God
is far stronger than man's greatest strength, and the craziest
32 LIVING WITH JESUS TODAY

things of God are wiser than the wisest of men. But Jesus'
time on earth was still our Lord at His poorest.
In II Corinthians 5:16, Paul explains that the key to spirit-
ual growth is to know Christ as He is now, and not as He was
in the flesh. So what is He like now?
Then there is Hebrews 10:19-22, "We have confidence to
enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living
way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is,
through His flesh."
The writer is implying that the body of Jesus is a veil. I
would have to agree, because that body has hidden the eter-
nal glory of Jesus Christ.
Behind that body the eternal Immanuel, God with us, lay
hidden.
Only at times did Jesus show His glory through the veil.
One of those occasions was on that mount of transfiguration.
As the apostles were looking at Jesus, His flesh and garments
could not contain the light.
At the end of His life as He was praying alone in the gar-
den, Jesus said, "Father, give Me again the glory that I had
with You before the ages." So the flesh of Jesus was a veil in
which this eternally glorious being, the creator of all things,
was hidden.
To know the bearded and sandaled One was not really to
know Christ. He was hidden behind that body. So the writer
of Hebrews exhorts us to go through the veil of His flesh to
know Him in spirit.
Of course, the writer had the Old Testament tabernacle in
mind.
You remember that the tabernacle had an outer court, then
the holy place inside the outer court, and then inside of the
holy place was the holiest of all. The holiest lay beyond the
veil of the temple. It was a very thick veil, and it was kept
closed. Only the high priest got to go within it, and then but
once a year. The other priests got to see the outside of the
veil, but they never saw within. They ministered in the holy
THE NEW COVENANT IS THE SPIRIT 33

place, but never in the holiest.

But when Jesus died on the cross, the Bible says that the
veil of the temple rent in two.
Can you imagine the shock this would be to a priest who
might have been ministering in the holy place at the time, per-
haps offering frankincense to God? Suddenly, the veil is rent
in two and the way into the holiest is open. The priest got to
see inside the very holiest.
The real veil that was being rent that day was the body of
Christ.
Jesus died for many reasons, but one of them was to finish
with that veil. He died to do away with the body of flesh that
had hidden His eternal being, His glorious state. So when He
died on the cross, the beard and sandals came to an abrupt
end. This picture of Jesus had to disappear from the view of
the disciples in order to make way for the real Christ who was
hidden within that body of flesh.
The author of Hebrews appeals to us to go through the ho-
ly place into the holiest—to go beyond the Christ of the
Gospels and know Him in the Spirit. We are to worship Him
today not in the flesh, but in spirit and in truth.
No wonder the writer had to complain to the Hebrews
about their lack of spiritual growth.
They were stuck on the wrong side of the veil. He had to
urge them to go on to perfection. And one of the key things
they had to do in order to grow was to go through the veil.
When the veil was rent in two in the temple, the Jews
quickly sewed it back together again. They closed off the
holiest from view. It seems that the church also has sewn the
veil back together, and once again we find ourselves on the
outside of the veil.
For many years I knew the veil by heart.
The Samaritan woman, the ten lepers, blind Bartimaeus—
you tell me the first word, and I'll tell you the rest. I knew it
all by heart. I had been hearing the same words since birth.
All of my ministry was on the outside of the veil. I was for-
34 LIVING WITH JESUS TODAY

ever preaching about the Samaritan woman, Zacchaeus, and

the different events of Jesus' earthly ministry.

One day I saw a little hole in the veil. And I said, "Lord,
how come we are still preaching about Your cursing of the fig
tree? What would Your angels say if they came to a service,
and they saw that the Lord of glory was still cursing a fig
tree? Lord, I thank You for cursing a fig tree, but I want to
begin ministering on the other side of the veil."
The reason for our lack of spiritual growth in the church is
that we have sewn up the veil. Concepts and doctrines con-
cerning the Christ who lived nearly 2,000 years ago are static.
They are not alive, so they cannot produce growth; only that
which is alive can give growth.
We are more historically-centered than we are Christ-cen-
tered.
We have pledged allegiance to the doctrine of a historical
Jesus instead of to a living person. That is why we have so
many divisions. We all claim to have the truth, but we have
different doctrines, even though we don't have different
Christs.
If we were Christ-centered, so that Christ would be a living
person to us, the actual head of the church, we all would be
one. But the head of our church is our set of rules and doc-
trines about the historical Jesus, so we all are divided.
When we turn to Jesus, unity comes. When a person comes
to Jesus, He is the same Jesus of the Catholics, and the same
Jesus of the Protestants. Christ is one, not many. But when we
turn to our set of rules and doctrines, we are divided.
We have to understand the difference between the old cov-
enant and the new covenant. Paul describes the believer as an
"epistle of Christ... written not with ink but with the Spirit of
the living God; not in tables of stone but in fleshly tables of the
heart" (II Corinthians 3:3).
The old covenant is the Ten Commandments, which were
engraved on tablets of stone. But the new covenant is Christ
THE NEW COVENANT IS THE SPIRIT 35

Himself living within the heart of the believer. It is a totally

different kind of covenant! The subjects of the kingdom of
God are ruled not by an external law but by the internal gov-
ernment of the King Himself.
Paul went on to say, "Who also has made us able ministers
of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the
letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (verse 6).
What did Paul mean by the Spirit?
Many believers imagine that the Old Testament is letter and
the New Testament is Spirit. Or they think that the new coven-
ant is a more spiritual version of the old law—the law plus the
Sermon on the Mount. But all of these are letter!
According to Paul, the new covenant is not a written law,
either of the Old Testament or of the New Testament. It is not
a spiritual interpretation of the Ten Commandments. Neither
is it the Sermon on the Mount. The new covenant is not a writ-
ten law at all, but it is the Spirit.
So Paul went on to explain, "Now the Lord is that Spirit;
and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (II Cor-
inthians 3:17). The new covenant is an agreement God made to
come and live within us personally in order to fulfill His will!
The old covenant is letter, the new covenant is Spirit.
The Lord Himself is the Spirit, and He lives within us. To be
in the kingdom of God is to be joined to the King so that He
rules you from within the new heart.
We can use the Gospels or any part of the New Testament
in the same way people use the Old Testament. Actually, it is
just the same way the Muslims use the Koran.
We read the Book, then we try to live by it. We see what
our founder did, and we try to copy Him. That makes us
another religion, like every other religion.
But the new covenant is not a religion!
We have a living Founder, who is alive today. He lives
within us, and He in us is the law by which we live. His life is
duplicated in us because we have been united with Him, made
one spirit with Him (I Corinthians 6:17). That is why Paul
36 LIVING WITH JESUS TODAY

could say, "For me to live is Christ." Paul's life was not

under his own rule, it was under the control of Christ.
The old covenant is described as a ministry of death. It was
a glorious covenant because it contained many beautiful
laws. But it ministered death to those who tried to keep those
laws because they couldn't do it. For that reason Paul called
the old covenant "the ministration of condemnation."

When Moses was given the old covenant he "put a veil over
his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look
to the end of that which is abolished, but their minds were
blinded; for until this day remains the same veil untaken
away in the reading of the Old Testament; which veil is done
away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, the
veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the
Lord, the veil shall be taken away" (verses 13-16).
The people who lived under the covenant had a veil over
their hearts.
And I have to say with sorrow, but also with hope, that for
many years I too read the Bible with a thick veil on my heart.
I was no better off than the people in Old Testament times
because of the veil.
I saw the letter and nothing else. I didn't see the Spirit. So
the letter was like a veil. I couldn't see God's intention behind
the letter. I saw just the lifeless demands of the law—de-
mands that no one has ever been able to fulfill.
Now I understand why Paul called the old covenant, con-
demnation and death. I tried to live by the law, and I taught
others to live by it. But we always felt like failures. We could
never do it! So we felt condemned, and we lived with a con-
tinual feeling of guilt.
A great many believers are terribly discouraged with trying
to live the Christian life because they have the old and the
new covenants mixed up. They know that under the new cov-
enant we are not under the law, but they still try to live accord-
ing to the law. When they find they can't do it, they feel
THE NEW COVENANT IS THE SPIRIT 37

condemned.
Our churches are full of condemned Christians. A lot of us
had learned to wear a mask so that we appeared to be doing all
right. But behind those masks there were feelings of failure
and discouragement. Many believers are in despair because
they can't do what they believe they are supposed to do.
It makes me sad to see so many people trying to live the
Christian life but finding that they are unable to.
But it also gives me hope. Yes, hope! Now that may seem
like a paradox. But in my own life it was only when I came to
the end of self-effort—when I saw that I couldn't do all the
things Christians are supposed to do—that I gave up and
turned to the Lord.
When a man turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
When we stop trying to do it ourselves and rest in Jesus, trust-
ing Him in us to live the Christian life, we no longer are blind-
ed by the veil. We get ourselves in focus and see clearly.
What do we see when the veil is removed?
I want you to listen very carefully to what Paul said. It is an
astounding revelation! If you once can see this, your whole
life will be transformed.
When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai after being face-
to-face with God for 40 days, his face shone. Some of God's
glory may have penetrated his skin so that light actually ra-
diated from his face! It must have been a tremendous sight to
see him shine with the glory of God!
But Moses knew that the glory was going to fade away, so
he put a veil over his face. Why did he cover himself with a
veil? Because he understood people and their reactions, so he
was very wise.
If he had come back with the glory shining from him, peo-
ple would have seen him and said, "Oh, Moses is such a man
of God!"
They would have practically worshiped him. But then,
when the glory later faded, they would have said, "He lost
the anointing!"
38 LIVING WITH JESUS TODAY

I don't know how long the glory lasted. Let's suppose it

lasted one month. For the first week it shone brightly. How
the people would have revered Moses! The second week, it
shone a little less; the third week, less still; until by the end of
the fourth week it was gone. What would people have
thought of Moses?
We do this with our pastors.
The pastor preaches beautifully, he visits the people and
shows a tremendous love for them, and the people praise
him. "Oh, pastor, we are so glad to have you here...your
ministry is so anointed!"
But then the pastor goes through a difficult time. His
preaching doesn't seem so inspired any more. He is not as
warm as he used to be when he visits with people.
"He is not like he used to be," people start to say. "He has
lost his anointing!"

Now, all of this is a type of the old covenant.

When people live under the law, obeying the letter, they
may go along quite well for a time. They discipline themselves
and put their lives in order, so that they actually look very ho-
ly.
For instance, someone comes along to the meetings and he
testifies, "Brothers and sisters, I had a tremendous exper-
ience with the Lord. He has delivered me from drugs."
This brother now looks very holy. He is doing all of the
right things, so he is accepted by everyone as being very spirit-
ual. He has the glory!
After two or three weeks, he is again in the park, smoking
pot. Christ didn't deliver him from drugs at all! Actually, had
we been wise we would have put a veil over his face so that
nobody knew he quit smoking. The glory he had manifested
was simply that of the law, and it quickly faded because the
holiness of the letter is usually transitory.
After pointing to the fading glory of the law's temporary
holiness, Paul goes on to show that the glory of Christ is very
THE NEW COVENANT IS THE SPIRIT 39

different. "But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a

mirror the glory of Lord, are changed into the same image
from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (verse
18).
Instead of fading, the glory of Christ in a person's life in-
creases from glory to glory.
The reason is simple. It is not an outer holiness that con-
sists of conforming to what others expect of us as Christians.
It is an inner holiness that springs up spontaneously, effort-
lessly, naturally from our core.
The old heart that was in every one of us at birth has been re-
placed. We have a new heart. The old man tried to be holy, but
he couldn't keep it up because his heart was not holy, so the
glory quickly faded. But the new man has a heart which is holy,
so it is natural for him to live righteously.
The heart is our command-center, like Houston, Texas. In
our old life, the one seated within us at the command-center
was the god of this world. He was lord of our lives, so that sin
ruled us (Ephesians 2:2; Romans 6:20).
But when our hearts turned to the Lord, Satan was ousted
from his throne and his internal rule over our lives ceased. In
his place, Christ Jesus came to live and reign. He is at our
command-center, so that we are under the government of the
kingdom of God. He gave each of us a new heart.
In the new covenant, there is no veil. We can look steadfast-
ly at the glory of Christ without a veil to cover it. The veil was
done away at the cross, so we are unveiled and He is unveiled.
Now, where do we see this unveiled glory of Christ? Where
do we look for it?
Listen to Paul's words, "But we all, with unveiled face be-
holding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord "If you remove
the veil from your face and look in a mirror, you will see the
glory of the Lord! In other words, when you remove the veil of
the law from your life and look into a mirror to see who you
really are, you will behold the glory of Christ in your own face.
The person who is joined to the Lord under the new coven-
40 LIVING WITH JESUS TODAY

ant is "one spirit" with Him (I Corinthians 6:17). Two have

been joined as one. So when we look at ourselves without the
veil of the old covenant, we see an expression of Jesus Christ!
Hallelujah!
Which Christ do we see?
The present-day Lord, the One who is no longer veiled in
flesh. Not the bearded and sandaled One, but the Christ who
is joined with us as one spirit and who is our life at this pres-
ent moment in the 20th century.
That is why we read in Romans 5:10, "For if, when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,
much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."
The death of Jesus—the shedding of His blood at Cal-
vary—made possible our forgiveness and justification.
Through it we are told that there is "no charge to answer" on
the day of judgment.
But the blood of Jesus doesn't empower us to live a saved
life. It is by the present-day life of Christ that we experience
salvation as a dynamic reality.
Salvation is not a present God gives us like a gift wrapped
up nicely in a package, so that we can put it on a shelf and
look at it. It is not a "thing." Salvation is a life! It is to walk
in a particular way, to experience a certain quality of life.
That is why Paul also said, "Work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling."
To work out our salvation is to walk as a saved person, to
live a saved life. It is to experience the fact of salvation on a
day-by-day basis. It is to live from the new heart, to manifest
the new creation that we are in Christ.
And how do we work out our salvation? How do we live
the saved life?
"For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do of
His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13). Christ is our life!
He is the One who impells us to do the will of God and em-
powers us to carry it out. It is He who generates the life in us
because we are one with Him.
THE NEW COVENANT IS THE SPIRIT 41

Paul explained: "For you are the temple of the living God;
as God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I
will be their God, and they shall be my people" (II Corinth-
ians 6:16).
When we live our ordinary, everyday life, God promises
that He will live through us. We are vessels to contain Him.
He moves us, urges us, motivates us to do His will, so that we
can say with Paul that it is no longer we who are living but
Christ who lives in us (Galatians 2:20).
Jesus said, "Lo, I am with you always."
This is what the primitive church understood. They had no
New Testament, not even the Old Testament; they didn't
have copies of the Old Testament at home to read. They just
had Jesus Christ.
So they said, "Jesus Christ heals you. Come on, get up."
We say, "Read books about healing." This is because we
have a theological approach based on books and meditation,
instead of on life. They had the living Person; we have only a
concept.
The record of the primitive church was, "And they went
forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them,
and confirming the word with signs following" (Mark 16:20).
We sing, "I'll never walk alone." We are at least being hon-
est. We don't go alone. We go with the Bible under our arm.
But in the primitive church, they went with the Lord. He
dwelt in them and walked in them; He was their life, not just
a concept. That is why they moved in such great power.
I recommend that you read the Gospels all over again.
Then study the veil.
After you have studied the veil, so that you are sure you
understand it, pull it aside and take a look at the ascended
Christ who is alive in you today. Look at yourself in a mirror,
without a veil of the old covenant law—forgetting the beard-
ed and sandaled One—and see the present-day Christ in ac-
tion through you at this very instant.
"Lord, there You are, inside of me all this time!"
42 LIVING WITH JESUS TODAY

"Yes, here I am."

Then start to fellowship with Him. Start to have His point
of view on all matters affecting your life.
Stop trying to copy the Jesus of nearly 2,000 years ago, and
let the living Christ flow through your character. Begin to see
His angle on things, and to think with His mind.
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Not lib-
erty for license or to turn the benches upside down and to
make a lot of noise. But liberty from the bondage of
law—liberty from the old covenant. Liberty to be the unique
expression of Christ that He created you to be.
Christ is alive today!
Look at yourself in a mirror. Get yourself in focus—dis-
cover who you are. You are an expression of the glorified,
eternal Christ who lives within you. Begin to believe that
about yourself and you will start to experience His life as a
daily reality.