The Word of God and the New Covenant – Part 1

I believe there is something viable about Word of Faith, which I believe is adherence and trust in the Bible as God's Word, but I do seek truth and balance.

I believe it could be important to tell the difference between the Word of God and the New Covenant.  The Bible includes various books of the Bible, which include prophesies, The Torah (The Old Covenant), historical accounts and The Gospel (The New Covenant).  We see various genealogies in the Bible, such as Matthew 1:2.

 

¹ The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.  ² Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren;

Matthew 1:2 KJV

The Word of God spells out to Noah the dimensions of the ark: 300 cubits by 50 by 30. The Word of God tells us that Solomon was made the wisest and richest man that ever lived. The Word of God says that a woman caught in the act of adultery, should be stoned to death.

But I don’t believe that these are promises or rules that apply to all who believe in the New Covenant: such promises would include remission of sin, redemption, reconciliation and righteousness (I call these “The Four R’s”); when 2 Peter 2:4 says “great and precious promises” – you can be sure it includes these.

We can also look at some Old Testament verses as applying to the believer in Christ: such as “by His stripes we were healed” (Isaiah 5:5). The Old Covenant is a foreshadow of the new and better covenant, which fulfils the old.  This is why many Christians have testified to being healed when believing and confessing this statement from Isaiah 5:5 – its talking about Jesus’ sacrifice.

There’s a tendency amongst Charismatic Christians to endlessly create analogies concerning popular Bible verses and many believers can be very “creative” when it comes to the Bible.  For instance, Deuteronomy 28:5 says, “Blessed shall be your basket and your store (kneading trough).” At first glance this appears to be a promise that Israel would have enough to eat. But charismatic preachers will tell you that this is an analogy that God will make you rich, or some such thing. Met needs - yes; lavish wealth - I'm not so sure.

I suppose there is something analogous about Deuteronomy 28:5 – I do believe God is for us and wants His children to have their needs met and do well in life.  But I suppose we all have different ideas about what constitutes “abundance”.  It has a lot to do with a person’s socio-economic upbringing and situation, which is what determines their expectations.  Typically, the average person living in the U.S.A. will have a different perspective on the concept of abundance than something living in, say, Bangladesh.  Despite the Bible indicating that we should not seek wealth, it doesn’t stop some people from making it very clear to God, the very things they want – just in case God’s idea of abundance doesn’t quite match our expectations.  The concept of what constitutes a “need” also needs to be considered: some people hold fast to certain things being needs that desperately need to be fulfilled, when in actual fact, they are not needs at all, but simply things desired.

I am certainly not against abundance, or even what could be called “lavish wealth”.  We see in the Bible that people like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were exceedingly blessed with material things.  I think when it comes to abundance and provision, we should, by faith, trust in God that He meets our needs – without getting too specific about it and without worrying.  I think the degree to which God blesses a person with wealth has a lot to do with His will for their lives: some people are meant to have a large ministry, whilst others might be entrepreneurs, with a multinational enterprise.  Other than that, abundance has a lot to do with the actual person: their capacity for things such as faith and wisdom.