OK, so starting with some thoughts about the New Covenant, the covenant that we as
Christians live under.
You may have noticed that the Sermon on the Mount is a pivot point between the old Mosaic
covenant and the new covenant. What is the essence of this change in covenant?
I think it would be fair to say that it is a change from following RULES to applying the deeper
PRINCIPLES behind the rules. Ultimately it’s about having God’s LAW written on our hearts
through the Holy Spirit.
And this is what Jesus came teaching. The ways of the kingdom of God, where kingdom citizens
have the perfect law of righteousness in their hearts. A law which supercedes the laws of
Moses because it is straight from the heart of God WITHOUT any acceptance of compromise
with the fallen nature.
You may think “surely the law of Moses did not compromise with the fallen nature”, but Jesus
tells us that it did.
Under Mosaic law in Deuteronomy 24 it says that a man could write his wife a certificate of
divorce, and yet Jesus says in Mark 10:5 that it was because of the hardness of their heart that
God allowed this, but that from the beginning it was not so – that what God has joined together
man should not separate.
In other words, although this was allowed under the Mosaic covenant, it did not reflect God’s
perfect way.
Let’s read the actual words in Matthew 5. Jesus says:
“Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of
divorce.’ “But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality causes her
to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.
(Matthew 5:31-32)
