Two questions cut to the core regarding our understanding of who God recognizes as his people.
- Now that Christ has died for our sins and risen again, can someone belong to God’s saved community without entering the new covenant? After all, the new covenant provides God’s promises to forgive us and to claim us as his own (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Hebrews 8:6,10,12).
- How do people enter this new covenant relationship with God that Christ’s death has made possible?
I guess there is a third question also. Â What verses reveal how we enter into the new covenant with its promises? What scriptures support our thinking?
Question two requires more than a verse associating some biblical principle with God’s saved people. Here’s why.
Jesus taught the necessity of repentance (Luke 13:5; 15:7). Will God claim as his saved people those who repent from doing evil but who also deny him and reject Jesus? Of course not. So what verses actually describe entering into the covenant and receiving its promised relationship?
What do you think? Elsewhere, I’ve proposed an answer.
Barry has worked with congregations in Texas, California and Brazil. He and his wife Sofia have two sons. He believes we should love God above all and that to honor this principle will shape daily decisions and silence competing values. Furthermore, we ought to love people in those ways we would like to be treated.
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