The old covenant was inferior to the new covenant. If every disobedience under the old covenant was visited with chastisement, what sort of punishment will fall on the individual who neglects his inconceivably greater inheritance under the new covenant? To whom much is given, of him will much be required.

Salvation by grace is conditional. There is a part that the Christian must play under the covenant of grace. If he does not keep the words of Christ, he will face an angry God.

God loves those who do what Christ has commanded.

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. (John 14:21)

Those who disobey Jesus' commandments will come under the judgment of God whether or not they are Christians!

If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. (John 15:6)

The fact that as yet we do not see all things put under man indicates that Adam and Eve did not receive the fullness of what the Lord God spoke in the beginning. Adam and Eve were the necessary physical beginning of the Kingdom of God. The flesh and bones that were created in them, and were begotten of them, are eternal in form and will be raised from the dead when the Lord comes (Luke 24:39).

The first man (the actual Man of which the Lord God spoke) to appear on the earth is the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is what God means by "man."

Adam and Eve, and their physical descendants, are not "man" in the fullest sense of God's declaration. True "man" is what Christ is: son of God and son of man in the fullest sense.

As we stated previously, receiving Christ and being born again makes us eligible to enter salvation. Being baptized with the Holy Spirit provides us with the wisdom and power to pursue salvation, to press toward the fullness of eternal life.

After being born again and baptized with the Holy Spirit we are not to neglect the pursuit of the goal. Our goal is the fullness of salvation. If we neglect the fervent pursuit of salvation we will let the Word of Christ slip from us. We will wander in the wilderness of unbelief and disobedience until we die.

If we choose to wander in the wilderness of unbelief and disobedience we will fall back into sin. God's Word states that we then are near to cursing. We stand in danger of being burned.

Speaking of those who once had been living in eternal life, the Scripture warns:

But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned. (Hebrews 6:8)

And again:

For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, (Hebrews 10:26)

To be continued.