Jesus, New Covenant Preacher

Despite the Biblical witness that the Law made nothing perfect (Heb. 7:19), and that no flesh is justified by the Law (Gal. 2:16; Rom. 3:20), there is still a huge contingency of evangelical Christians who have been taught that Jesus is our Savior because he kept the Old Covenant Law perfectly. The claim is made that since the New Covenant wasn’t validated or in force until the crucifixion (Heb. 9), Jesus was not teaching it to others nor could he live according to it himself. Subsequently, it is further contended, he must have been perfectly keeping the Old Covenant still in force during his lifetime, and this is how his righteousness was reckoned in order to be our Savior.

However, there are two important points to be noted from Scripture which I will show in this article: 1) The New Covenant did indeed exist during the lifetime of Jesus prior to the cross, and, 2) Jesus’ righteousness during his lifetime was not according to the Old Covenant Law of Moses.

As for point #1, the case is open and shut from Hebrews 9:16-23:

“For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives. Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood.  For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, [then] he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.’ And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.”

Notice in the above verses that even though a covenant may not be validated or inaugurated for humanity at large until there is blood that is shed, the covenant is still in existence through the words of the one introducing/making that covenant. This is true whether it is Moses or Jesus making the covenant. This verse proves beyond the shadow of any doubt what should be obvious to us all, that Jesus laid down the terms of the New Covenant in his ministry, and later inaugurated it officially at the cross.  This is corroborated by Hebrews 2:2-3 where the Old and New Covenants are contrasted, and Jesus is the one who first spoke the New Covenant. Not surprisingly according to Hebrews 1 and 2, the New Covenant is inextricably linked to the Gospel of the coming Kingdom.

As for point #2, there is a massive weight of Scripture:

Romans 3:21-22, 26-28: “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith of Jesus Christ for all those who believe…so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who is of the faith of Jesus. Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we maintain that a man [which would include Jesus] is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”

The above passage speaks about the faith OF Jesus, that is, the faith he had while he was on earth. Those who have the faith he taught and demonstrated while alive before the crucifixion, are justified thereby. It is a faith that is apart from the Law. For those who would wrongly speculate that this speaks of a faith that Jesus has only post-resurrection, I refer you to Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Here are some additional verses along the same line as the one quoted above:

Galatians 3:11: “Now that no one [‘no one’ would necessarily include Jesus] is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, ‘the righteous man shall live by faith.’”

Galatians 2:16: “Nevertheless knowing that a man [Jesus was a man] is not justified by the works of the Law but through the faith of Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh [Jesus was flesh, or a ‘mortal man’ as in the NASB margin] will be justified.”

Philippians 3:9: “…and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through the faith of Jesus, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.” Compare “the faith of Abraham” (Rom. 4:12, 16), which is not faith in Abraham.

So far under point #2 we have seen that Jesus was considered righteous apart from works of the Law, and justified before God the same way.

Here’s another pivotal scripture that should really end the whole debate:

Galatians 3:20-21: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” Compare with this John 1:17: “The Law came through Moses; grace and truth came through Messiah Jesus.” Note also Acts 20:24-25, where the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom is exactly synonymous with the preaching of the Gospel of the grace of God.

Do we catch the implications of Galatians 3:20-21? Christ did not need to die if righteousness can come through the Law! If Jesus was considered righteous because he kept the Law of Moses perfectly, he died needlessly. Paul objects to this idea strenuously. Paul does not want to distance us from Jesus by putting Jesus, our model, under the Law of Moses!

But, someone will ask, why is it written that Jesus was born under the law? Does that not mean he was responsible to the Law of Moses, precluding the possibility that he was the first New Covenant preacher? As we will see, it does not.

Let’s look at all the verses where the phrase “under the law” is found in the Bible. We find that there are eight of them in the New Testament. Four of them refer to those who lived in the Old Covenant dispensation. I quote two of those four here:

Romans 2:12: “For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.”

Romans 3:19: “Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God.”

The other two of the four are similar and are found in Galatians 3:23 and 4:5. All four of these refer to those who were obviously responsible to the Law of Moses because they were Jews and lived before the New Covenant.

The fifth scriptural reference to “under the law” we will examine is 1 Corinthians 9:20-21, and it is especially enlightening. Paul says, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law, though not myself being under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Messiah, so that I might win those who are without law.”

Paul wrote this, of course, after the crucifixion of Jesus, when God had started to hold all people exposed to the New Covenant responsible to the New Covenant. It is impossible that Paul would still be insisting that anyone, upon conversion to Christ, be held responsible to the Old Covenant Law. Paul says that he himself, as a model Christian and Jew, is not under the Law of Moses. For diplomatic reasons only, he is willing to be as a Jew to the Jews, and as a Gentile to the Gentiles. This was for the purpose of winning them to Christ, when of course they would no longer be under the Law of Moses just as Paul was not.

This brings us now to the much (apparently) debated Galatians 4:4: “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.” Does this verse mean that Jesus was responsible to keep the Law of Moses and thus have nothing to do with a new covenant? Of course not. Galatians 4:4 simply refers to the fact that Jesus was born at the time when Jews were still living under the Law of Moses. This sort of meaning has already been proven valid by our previous review of how Paul used the same phrase in 1 Corinthians 9.  But from the time of the official inauguration of the New Covenant, all converts are to become members of that New Covenant. It is the covenant words of Jesus which are said to be spirit and life (John 6:63). A process of transitioning was needed to move Jews from the Old to the New Covenant; from the old wineskins to the new wineskins; from the now extinct Law of Moses given at Sinai to the new Law of the New Covenant given by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

Our next Scripture referring to “under the law” disproves yet another major misconception which claims that the phrase in 1 Corinthians 9:20 should be translated “under [the penalty of] the law.” Apart from being not what the Greek says, this would render Galatians 4:21 unintelligible: “Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?”

No one wants to be under “the penalty of” the law; therefore “under the law” can have no such meaning. Obviously, Galatians 4:21 is speaking to those who do not yet understand that they should not be responsible to the Law of Moses in the letter. Paul pleads with them to be otherwise. We must let Paul tell us what he means by “under the law,” for after all, it is he who is responsible for this phrase throughout the New Testament.

Our final verse for “under the law” is Galatians 5:18: “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law” (cp. John 1:17). The entire context of Galatians 5 is that Christians should no longer hold themselves accountable to the Law of Moses, but should come under Christ by following the New Covenant teachings of Jesus, summarized as the Gospel of the Kingdom. We should be led by the spirit of God which will empower us to live godly lives. The chapter is too long to be included in this article, but it has nothing to do with “penalty,” but rather living a godly life and not subjecting oneself to the Law of Moses.

There is much more in Scripture that presents Jesus as our premier New Covenant preacher/teacher. If his righteousness were based on keeping the Law of Moses, then he died needlessly, and his life was the wrong model for us. The righteousness of Jesus is based on the law of faith found in the New Covenant (Rom. 8:2), which he first presented during his ministry, then validated at his death. Jesus as our Christian model was followed by Paul, and both Jesus and Paul provide the basis of true Christianity. The popular view in evangelicalism makes this teaching unintelligible.