It is not enough to know that if any person is in Christ, he or she is a new creation. There is no salvation in knowing this fact. The covenant operates as our old fallen nature is crucified with Christ and the resurrection Life of Christ takes its place.

The new covenant will find fulfillment when every member of God's elect, God's Israel, needs no further teaching but knows God for himself.

The new covenant includes forgiveness ("For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more"). The promise of forgiveness comes at the end. This is because in God's mind the goal of the new covenant is not forgiveness but the transformation of people into the righteous moral image of Christ.

When the Apostles preached the Gospel of the Kingdom, as in the Book of Acts, their primary emphasis was on repentance and forgiveness of sin. Initial repentance and forgiveness are necessary because there is no way in which the righteous Nature of Christ can be developed in a human being until first he has been forgiven through the atonement made by the Lord on the cross.

God can wink at his past sins because of the blood atonement. This forgiveness is not to be regarded as complete salvation. It is rather the authorization to begin the program of salvation. If our salvation consisted primarily of forgiveness the Kingdom of God would exist in word only. There would be no strength in it.

The purpose of forgiveness is to make it possible for us to approach God with a clear conscience so we, through the virtue Christ supplies and the assistance of the Holy Spirit, can begin to be saved.

What do we mean "begin to be saved?" We mean that salvation is the changing of us from the likeness of the old fallen nature to the likeness of the righteous Christ. Meanwhile the blood of God's Lamb keeps on covering and forgiving us so that we may remain without condemnation.

Forgiveness is not the only or even the primary aspect of the new covenant. Contemporary thinking is that the new covenant is better, not because it enables people to keep the righteous laws of God but because it no longer demands righteous behavior of us but receives us without the "wedding garment."

We are in a time of grave apostasy. But there is hope. The Lord Jesus has come to invite us to repentance based on a true understanding of the new covenant.

We will set forth in four aspects the way the new covenant operates.

First is the goal. The goal of the new covenant is to change us into the moral image of Christ (and finally into the outer, physical image with a glorified body) and also to bring us into total, untroubled union with the Father through Jesus.

Second is the means to the goal. There is no way of attaining the goal of the new covenant other than by having Christ formed in us and dwelling in us. The salvation of the Lord cannot possibly proceed from the fallen nature of man. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.

To be continued.