Some specific Bible verses seem to be consistently more popular among the Christian sermon circuit. And yet on many occasions, the verses are plucked out of context and contorted in order to appear as though they should be applied to the life of a believer within the New Covenant of Jesus Christ.
But what if the message turns out to be a misapplied myth or fable that isn’t really compatible with the gospel of grace? We look at once such example this week from Psalms 84:11 … where a conditional promise was announced for those under the Mosaic law who walked uprightly. The problem? Nobody ever accomplished it. But God provided another solution that wasn’t based on our walk.
Forgiveness under the Old Covenant was based upon certain conditions, which included repeated sacrifices from priests under the law which could never take away sin. This ministry provided a temporary forgiveness and covering, but sin still lingered. If forgiveness still needed to be dispensed repeatedly to us in Christ, this suggests Jesus would need to return to perform more sacrifices – over and over again – because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Where statements by Jesus and the Apostle Paul appear to contradict each other regarding forgiveness, they can be explained by recognizing the work of two entirely different covenants, producing very different results. The Old Covenant consisted of continual sacrifices that only provided a reminder of sins. The New Covenant consisted of one sacrifice that took away all sin.
