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Summary
The Bible is the story of “covenants,” also called “testaments,” so we have an Old Testament and a New Testament. Covenant means “deal,” but the new deal is actually older than the old deal.
The Old Covenant is also called the Covenant of Law. It’s a deal between two parties. It’s conditional. It’s transactional. God will bless Israel if they obey the law and curse Israel (or allow them to remain cursed) if they don’t.
The New Covenant is also called the Eternal Covenant, and according to Paul it was ratified 430 years before the Old Covenant (Gal. 3:17). And because it’s a covenant in which God keeps all sides, it’s also called “The Promise.” You can read about it in Genesis 12.
God just decides to bless a pagan named “Abram.” He is blessed to be a blessing to all the nations of the world. So that Abram would believe this promise, God makes a Covenant. It appears that in that day, people would “cut covenants” by walking between the pieces of a slaughtered animal (a lamb for instance), reciting the terms of the covenant, and then saying something like “May it be done unto me as it was done to this animal if I break the terms of our covenant.” Abram sees fire passing between the pieces of animals as God states the terms of the covenant, and Abram does absolutely nothing. God keeps both sides. It is the Covenant of Grace. It creates Faith.
The New Covenant literally contains the Old Covenant. The Covenant of Law was kept in a coffin (an “ark”) in the Holy of Holies in the Temple. On top of the ark on the Mercy Seat and throne of God, the High Priest would sprinkle the blood of sacrifice once a year on the Day of Atonement. The Bible ends with an amazing vision given to John who also wrote our Gospel: He sees a lamb standing on the throne of God as if it had just been slain. A river of Life flows from the throne and throughout all creation as the voice from the throne cries, “Behold I make all things new.” “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” is the Beginning and the End and the Way in between. He is the Judgment of God. He is literally the Art of the Deal, God’s Deal.
So, I was surprised around this time last year when I saw a commercial that, at first, I thought was a skit. Our current commander in chief was selling God Bless the USA Bibles with the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, and Pledge of Allegiance pasted inside… just after “It is finished” with the Lamb of God standing on the Throne.
There is something refreshing about the idea of an elected official selling Bibles. For most of my life, Bibles were banned in the classroom. How do we teach world history without teaching about the most influential book ever written? That’s absurd. So, it’s refreshing. . . and terrifying.
The Constitution is a covenant of law. The Declaration was penned by a man that cut all references to the Resurrection out of his Bible, and to pledge your allegiance to anything other than God is idolatry — to even pledge it to God is forbidden (Matt. 5, James 5) for “all men are liars.” I went to the website. You can buy an autographed God Bless the USA Bible for only one thousand dollars.
I really got offended… and then it felt like God whispered in my ear. “Hey Peter, isn’t this what my church has been doing for the last 1,500 years? Maybe Donald learned this from you guys. And aren’t you, kind of, a Bible salesman?” God does have a point.
In John 2:1-12, the disciples follow the Lamb of God to the Wedding Feast in Cana where Jesus makes wine. It’s a sign. In the End (which is also the Beginning), God in Christ Jesus, on a tree in a garden, makes blood that’s wine and wine that’s blood. The Life is in the blood.
In John 2:13, we read, “The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem (She is His Bride). In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting there.” He made a whip and started yelling. “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade [emporion: merchandise].”
I don’t think Jesus has a problem with trade so much as anything but free trade. In the Holy of Holies nothing is “transactional,” or maybe we could say, “everything is transactional,” for the moment of giving is the moment of receiving; it’s all in all, all of the time; it’s all the Dance of Life — eternal Life.
My dad loved capitalism and the Protestant Work Ethic. He thought it made America great. He’d say, “If a businessman runs a tennis shoe factory well because he wants everyone to have good tennis shoes, that man is offering the highest form of worship that he can offer to his Creator. But if he runs the factory to make money (to put his capital in barns for himself), he’s been caught by the lie. He may think he’s won, but he’s utterly lost.” “It’s harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom than for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle,” said Jesus. That’s terrifying! But there’s an obvious remedy: Invest your capital in the poor people all around you.
John 2:19, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days,” said Jesus. “The Jews then said, ‘it has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days? (46+3=49; that’s Pentecost.) But he was speaking of the temple of his body.”
The temple is terrifying, at least to modern people who eat meat and don’t realize what they’re doing. It was all about blood flow, for they all knew that the life was in the blood. Because God constantly gives life (most obviously in the form of food), the Israelites were commanded to bring the life, the blood, back to the temple. I drew a picture: The Holy of Holies in the temple, blood flowing out to all of Israel, and then back to the throne as worship. It’s all terrifying when enforced by law. But what if we really did destroy that temple and he rebuilt it as his own body? I drew the outline of a body around all the worshippers, and suddenly the meaning changed, entirely!
Right now, I’m bleeding! Every member of my body is bleeding, and it feels great; it’s life. Every member, every moment, receiving blood and bleeding blood. If a member stores the Life in a barn, we call it a blood clot and then, death. Each gives all and all give all to each — it’s a river of life. Eternal life is constant sacrifice made in freedom; Eternal Life is the Body of Love.
My dad loved capitalism and the USA. He enlisted in the Army during World War II and was stationed in the Philippines after the war. I remember him telling me why America was so great. “Peter we were the first real empire in history to just give territory away. We gave the Philippines away. And Peter, we helped rebuild Germany and Japan. We turned our enemies into friends.” That’s what makes America great according to my dad: Sacrifices made in freedom. Love is Sacrifice in freedom.
The Gospel is not the message that we win because others lose. The Gospel is that all win because one lost that all might live — and it’s the greatest honor to live now as the very body of that One —the Body of Christ.
How do two become one body, Bride of Christ?
The wedding feast in Cana is like the Passover Feast in Jerusalem, and both are pictures of the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. You are His Bride. This is the meaning of the Marriage Covenant: It refers to Christ and His Bride. It creates space for “good things to run wild.” Good things are non-transactional relationships: faithfulness. Bad things are transactional relationships: faithlessness, that is “whoredom,” that is buying and selling Love as if God were a commodity. Perhaps this is why our Bridegroom got angry. In the bridal chamber, in the Holy of Holies, there are no more calculations. In Heaven, all are married, all are faithful, and none is alone. How do we unfaithful people ever become faithful?
In Revelation 19, the Great Harlot is destroyed, and the Word of God tramples the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God, and the Bride appears. The voice from the throne on top of the Ark cries, “Look, I make all things new.” That’s all a description of what happens on the tree in the garden at “the end of the ages.” We proved to be utterly unfaithful. But in the moment that we took His life, He gave His life, crying, “Father, forgive” as He “delivered up His Spirit,” the same spirit that fell on us at Pentecost. When we were utterly unfaithful, He remained entirely faithful, romanced us into His covenant, and impregnated us with His Life; He impregnates us with Faith. He turns harlots into brides. He is the Art of the Deal.
“Nice,” we say. So, what do we do?
Jesus (actually, Jonathan Roumie) answered that question for Tucker Carlson on his podcast by sharing the true story of Takashi Nagai who lived through the Bombing of Nagasaki, Japan (the largest Christian community in Japan in 1945). “Is there not a profound relationship between the annihilation of Nagasaki and the end of the war?” said Takashi. “Was not Nagasaki the chosen victim, the Lamb without blemish, slain as a whole burnt offering on the altar of sacrifice, atoning for the sins of all the nations during World War II? …Let us be thankful that through this sacrifice peace was granted to the world and religious freedom to Japan.” He died six years later from radiation poisoning.
“That is not a normal secular perspective,” says Tucker. “No,” says Jesus.
My dad was crossing the Pacific when the bomb detonated over the Cathedral in Nagasaki. His ship had just dropped depth charges due to the presence of Japanese subs. . . I think Takashi Nagai saved my life, or better: The presence of the Lamb of God in Nagasaki, Japan and Takashi Nagai saved all of us. Soon, Takashi, my dad, and I will be partying together and drinking new wine.
We call this incident in John Chapter 2, “the cleansing of the temple.” John doesn’t call it that. He knows that Jesus doesn’t cleanse His temple with a whip; He cleanses it with wine, blood that’s wine.
Everything exists and is maintained so that you and I would witness the sacrifice of the Lamb and freely choose to sacrifice like the Lamb, that we would become who we truly are: The Body and Bride of Christ, that we would learn to love LOVE, who is our bridegroom.
I don’t know what legislation is best for our country or for whom you are to vote. In the Revelation, world history appears to be entirely set, leaving only one question: “What will you do, right now?” Will you follow the Lamb? He will make you great. That’s the Deal. Become the Art of the Deal, God’s Deal, the image and likeness of Love.