FUNDAMENTAL
DIFFERENCES

Between New Covenant Doctrine
and Some "Orthodox" Traditions

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Introduction

One of the great and noble aspirations of all true Christians throughout the Christian dispensation has been to achieve, by the grace of God, "a unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God" (Eph.4:13, NIV) in the face of sectarianism. Today many groups of sincere and well-meaning disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ have sought to come together to hammer out a unified theology and practice that will be the basis of Christian unification. These dialogues, whilst failing to achieve that desired unity, have, nevertheless, led to greater understanding of different points of view and hopefully more inter-denominational co-operation.

New Covenant Christians have always taken the view that co-operation is better than conflict as a basic moral tenet of the Christian faith. Consequently, New Covenant Christians have been found working side by side with other Christian groups in the sharing of the basic Christian witness that Jesus is the Christ, the resurrected Son of the Living God, and that salvation is possible through Him, and Him alone.

Christianity is, at its root, a way of life rather than a "system" of theological thought. However, it is also true to say, that our theology affects our way of life. Our doctrinal beliefs affect the way we behave individually and towards each other. Provided that living is perceived as the ultimate goal and not a set of theological propositions, then New Covenant Christians are of the belief that theological discussion is fruitful and beneficial to the Body of Christ as a whole.

So how are we to arrive at a "unity of the faith"? And, following on from this, how are we to "attain to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Eph.4:13, NIV)? How are we to avoid being "tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming" (v.14)? How are we, indeed, to be found "speaking the truth in love" so that we may "grow up into Him who is the head, that is, Christ" (v.15)? The answer is simple: "LET GOD BE TRUE, AND EVERY MAN A LIAR" (Rom.3:4). We must let the Lord speak for Himself and not the traditions of men. We must not allow ourselves to fall under the severe condemnation of Jesus Christ who, speaking of certain religionists of His day, declared: "You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men" (Mark 7:8,(9) NIV).

Rejecting the traditions of all movements, Christian or otherwise (Col.2:8), the New Covenant Church of God elected at its inception that it would follow only the teachings of God, His Son Jesus Christ, the prophets and the apostles -- in other words, the Word of God. Trusting as we do in words of eternal life (John 6:68), we declare: "Let God be true, and every man a liar"!

With that as our basis, we invite you to join with us on a short journey through the New Testament to show where some of the most fundamental teachings of Christ and His apostles have either been misunderstood or deliberately distorted in order to harmonise with preconceived doctrines and traditions, in the hope that you will be enlightened and have a desire to let God be true in your lives also.

1. Ministry in the Church

When the apostle Paul gave the rallying call for Christians to be united and come to a true knowledge of the Son of God, avoiding all the false teachings that even in his time abounded (Eph.4:13-14), he indicated the method by which this would be achieved, namely:

• 1. Apostolic ministry
• 2. Prophetic ministry
• 3. Evangelical ministry
• 4. Pastoral ministry
• 5. Educational ministry (teaching)
• 6. Works of service (Eph.4:11-12)

There are many churches who do splendid work in one or more of these areas but very, very few who offer comprehensive ministry in all of them. Without all of them, there is no complete Body of Christ". And without a complete Body of Christ, how can the people come to a unity of faith and to a full knowledge of Christ? How can they possibly mature and attain to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ? A Church which does not offer these six ministries cannot possibly be bringing its members to a fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet many, if not the majority, of these denominations maintain that apostles and prophets, for example, are now no longer necessary in the ministry. Little wonder, then, that Christendom has not come to a "unity in the faith" if it will not obey all the Word.

It is true that some (though not many) denominations ordain people to the offices of "apostle", "prophet", "evangelist", "pastor" and "teacher", but calling someone into an office does not necessarily mean that the ministry these offices are supposed to mediate are actually present. Some churches such as the New Apostolic Church, the Mormon Church, and the Saints' Church have a fully organised quorum of 12 Apostles and proudly announce that they have the true Church organisation, and others like some Baptist and Pentecostal groups claim that apostles and prophets arise in congregations as a result of personal inner convictions (though there is no limit to the number of apostles, for example).

Important though these offices are, they are not the end in themselves -- it is the ministry they bring forth which either qualifies them for, or disqualifies them from, these offices. These organisations are sending out apostles who often do not imitate the apostolic ministry of the New Testament, prophets who do rarely prophesy as the prophets of old (or otherwise issue false and scripturally disjunctive prophecies), evangelists who do not evangelise like the New Testament evangelists, and teachers who are teaching doctrines very different from those taught to the first Christians.

Are these offices to be found in your denomination? And are they performing the kind of ministry indicated in the New Testament? If the answer to either or both of these questions is in the negative, then there is no way that you can be brought into Christian maturity and into the fullness of Christ, and there is no way that your denomination can ever come to a "unity in the faith" with the body of redeemed and sanctified Christians.

2. Teaching Correct Doctrine

For a Church to be walking the correct path it must be teaching correct doctrine and living it out. If it were possible to somehow quantify the different kind of ministry and then ask ourselves: What did Jesus do most? we would probably come to the conclusion that the bulk of the Saviour's ministry was teaching, notwithstanding his pastoral, healing and other ministries.

The list of ministries given by Paul as being essential to a full Christian life is written in an interesting order. If we take that list and see how it is applied throughout the New Testament, we find that there is a definite connection between them. The theme of Paul's discourse to the Ephesians is maturity -- growing up into Christ; and the presence or absence of the ministries detailed indicates the maturity or immaturity of Christian Churches.

The Christian is converted after hearing the Word of Salvation. The teaching he gets from preachers of the Word may be said to be the stimulus to the Christian life. Conversion leads to a new perspective on life and on people -- people suddenly become more interesting and there is a desire to love and serve them. This represents the pastoral phase of ones spiritual growth.

This local pastoral concern, when it flowers into maturity, naturally extends itself farther afield and the desire to witness of the Word is born. The Christian may be said to enter his evangelical phase. The active missionary will grow in spiritual stature, his evangelical vision will expand, and he will enter into the prophetic dimension of the Gospel. As his love for people grows, so the Holy Spirit will bless him by revealing to him as concretely as He did to the apostles in New Testament, leading him finally to be a messenger of the New Covenant, an apostle.

To some extent, all of these occur simultaneously to differing degrees though there may be said to be distinct phases in spiritual maturing which may be matched with the responsibilities of high office. The net result is works of service. The Gospel, beginning doctrinally in an educational environment, always leads to active, concrete service of one form or another.

By definition, service is a forgetting of self and of one's own denominational interests. It is only when Christians have entered this phase of Christian consciousness that denominational begin boundaries disappear. And one of the most impressive examples in recent times has been, in the view of New Covenant Christians, YWAM -- Youth With a Mission, started by a young man from the Assemblies of God which has clearly brought forth the fruits of following the Pauline recipe. Another group who are admired by us are the Salvation Army. The end result of "unity in the faith" is always co-operative service to humanity.

3. Bible Translations

All of this must, however, begin with correct teaching. What I would now like to do is look at some of the fundamental teachings of the Gospel. The first problem we have is with the translation process. There may be said to be a scale on which translations can be measured. At one end of the scale are the literal translations, which reproduce in the receptor language (English) the grammatical forms of the source language (Greek). Examples of these are the King James Version, the Revised Standard Version, and the New American Standard Version.

At the other end of the scale are "dynamically equivalent translations", which aim at reproducing in receptor language not the grammatical forms of the source language but the meanings that the original readers would have understood. Sometimes these translations are called paraphrases. Examples would be the Today's English Version ("Good News Bible") and the New Jerusalem Bible (Roman Catholic). The New English Bible and the New International Version fall somewhere between.

The only version which would fall outside the whole of this spectrum is the Inspired Version of the Holy Scriptures published by the Saints' Church which claims to be a prophetic translation of the King James Bible (perhaps better called the Inspired King James Version).

The New Covenant Church of God, whilst favouring no particular translation, originally used the New International Version as its starting point and made prophetic re-translations of ambiguous texts. Should it ever be published as a whole, it would probably be called the Inspired New International Version though the Church has also made prophetic re-translations of the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version. The Hebraic-Roots Version (HRV) and Institute for Scripture Research Version (ISRV) are two very popular Messianic versions that have come to the fore in recent years. The New King James Version (NKJV) has latterly tended to replace the NIV.

In establishing the doctrine of Christ and of the apostles it is therefore extremely important not to be hidebound to a single Bible translation. This requires considerable study and knowledge of the Word. It is also important to realise that whilst 99% of Bible manuscripts are harmonious (of which there are now some 5,000), there are different renditions as in, for example, the Greek Septuagint and the Aramaic Peshitta. It should also be remembered that translators invariably inject their opinions into their translations. It cannot be entirely avoided. Knowing the background of the translators of a particular version is therefore important.

Because not every Christian is able to make such an in-depth study, a tradition of prophetic interpretation is advantageous if not essential. Jesus Himself declared that the Comforter or Holy Spirit would teach the saints "all things" (John 14:26) suggesting that the written Word would be confirmed by a second witness, and arguably, a higher witness (Matt.18:16; 2 Cor.13:1).

New Covenant Christians maintain that this "second witness" is indispensable to true spiritual education. Its function is to confirm what is already written and, as willed by God, to expand and clarify what is already revealed. This kind of prophetic ministry has always been very active in the New Covenant Church of God. Linguistics is simply not enough, and on its own is always going to lead to disputations.

However, linguistics and an in-depth study of the Scriptures is by no means profitless. In the rest of this article we shall take a look at certain key doctrines from the linguistic point-of-view in the hope that you, the reader, will obtain the second witness of the Holy Spirit promised by the Lord Jesus. Remembering that the New Testament was written by Jews with a Jewish mind-frame, the New Covenant Church of God frequently favours Jewish or Aramaic renditions of the text, as, for example, in the Jewish New Testament translated by David Stern as this most closely parallels the original spirit of the authors. As far as scholarly translations are concerned, the most authoritative non-Jewish one is probably the authorised 1611 King James Version which the New Covenant Church of God considers to be perhaps the best.

We will now look at one very important Biblical doctrine which, if misunderstood, can have the effect of distorting most other doctrines of the Christian faith: the doctrine of the Law and the New Covenant.

KEY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES EXAMINED

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them" (Matt.5:17, NIV).

"I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil" (KJV).

Did Jesus come to "fulfil" or to "fill" the Law of Moses? Whole theological systems have diverged at this and similar passages. The theological implications often drawn by translators are that Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies of the Old Testament pertaining to the Jews, so that none remain for them now; and that He kept the Torah (the Pentateuch, or first Five Books of Moses) perfectly, so that no one need obey it today. This, by and large, is the conclusion of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Churches.

But these conclusions do not follow logically, and in fact they contradict Jesus' immediately preceding statement that he did not come to abolish (to destroy) the Torah. A far better translation of the Greek word plerôsai is in fact "fill". And indeed, some modern translations agree with this rendering:

"I did not come to abolish, but to complete" (NEB)

"I have not come to do away with them, but to give them real meaning" (TEV)

Jesus therefore came to fill the Torah and the ethical pronouncements of the Prophets FULL with their COMPLETE MEANING so that everyone can know all what obedience entails. This, is in fact, the subject of the entire Sermon on the Mount (Matt.5-7); and Matthew 5:17, understood in this way, is its theme sentence. Interestingly, this understanding is concordant with Jewish tradition, which says that when the Messiah (Christ) comes, He will both explain obscure passages of Torah and actually change it.

The same message is found throughout the New Testament and Paul, whom most "orthodox" Christians say teaches the opposite, says it unambiguously. But again, the translators, imposing their own theological world, have changed the meaning of the original.

The New International Version which comes out of an evangelistic Protestant background, reads:

"Christ is the end of the Law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes" (Rom.10:4, NIV).

The New English Bible, produced for the Church of England, is even worse:

"For Christ ends the Law and brings righteousness for everyone who has faith" (NEB).

The Catholic New Jerusalem Bible says:

"But now the Law has come to an end with Christ, and everyone who has faith may be justified" (JB).

But they are all wrong. The Greek telos, which gives us the English word "teleology", usually means "goal, purpose, consummation", NOT "termination". The Messiah, Jesus Christ, did not bring the Torah to an end. Rather, as the Jewish New Testament renders it:

"the goal at which the Torah aims is the Messiah, who offers righteousness to everyone who trusts" (JNT).

This is the point that Paul is making in Romans 9:30-10:13. For this reason the Greek word de at the beginning of Romans 10:6 is rendered as a continuative, "moreover", rather than as an adversative, "but"; for the latter word would imply that there are two paths to righteousness -- through deeds (i.e. obeying the Torah apart from faith, verse 5) and through faith (verses 6-10). However, Paul's point throughout the passage, and indeed throughout Romans, is that for Jews and Gentiles alike there has never been more than one route to righteousness, namely, trusting God; so that the Torah is built on trusting God and from beginning to end has always required faith (Rom.1:16-17).

What, then, is the New Testament? It is Torah! In Hebrews 8:6 most translations inform us that the New Covenant "has been enacted" upon better promises. This would be an adequate translation were the subject matter Athenian legislation or Roman decrees. But the Greek word used here, nenomothetêtai, is a compound of nomos, which can mean "law" generally but in the Book of Hebrews always means the Torah specifically, and tithêmi a common word meaning "put" or "place". The only other appearance of nenomothêtai in the New Testament is a few verses earlier, at 7:11, where all agree that it refers to the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, as do the related words nomothesia (Romans 9:4) and nomothetês (Jacob 4:12). Therefore the Jewish New Testament rightly translates this passage as:

"For this (New) Covenant has been given us as Torah on the basis of better promises" (Heb.8:6, JNT).

This means not only is the Torah still in force but that the New Covenant given through Jesus Christ is Torah in the same sense as is the Sinaitic Covenant through Moses.

This is revolutionary thinking for the Christian world which for nearly two millennia has tried to downplay the Law. Christendom has, in effect, watered down the Gospel! And the way they sometimes portray the Law in evangelical circles one would lead one to think that it had been given by a criminal!

So are New Covenant Christians Jewish? No, we are not (save those who are racially Jews). We do not belong to the Old Covenant but to the New. So what is the New Covenant? It is the Old Covenant on a much higher plane of spirituality and morality with the Old coming to completion -- being filled up -- in Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is Himself the Torah! The Law or Torah is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is the Law or Torah. Which is as it should be for it was Jesus Christ, the pre-incarnate God, who gave the Torah to Moses in the first place.

The New Covenant is refined or reformed Torah. Whereas the Old Covenant was given by, and pointed to, Christ, the New Covenant is Christ. He -- His whole way of being -- is the incarnate, completed Torah.

Does that mean that the Law observance is "legalistic", the accusation made by so-called "orthodoxy"? Is the New Covenant Church of God "legalistic"? Do we follow the "works of the Law" and are we "under the Law"? Well, let's be clear what we mean here. The Greek phrases erga nomou and upo nomon were coined by the apostle Paul and used by him in three of his letters -- Romans, Galatians and 1 Corinthians; each appears ten times in the New Testament. They are usually translated "works of the Law" and "under the law", respectively. This often causes the reader to infer that keeping the Torah is bad, and that being within the framework of Torah-observance is bad. C.E.B.Cranfield, in his International Critical Commentary: The Epistle to the Romans (Edinburgh; T&T Clark Ltd.,1979, p.853), takes these phrases as not referring to the Torah itself but to MAN'S LEGALISTIC PERVERSION OF IT. Therefore erga nomou is rendered: "legalistic observance of Torah commands" and upo nomon, "in subjection to the system which results from perverting the Torah into legalism." The reader can then infer, correctly, that according to the New Testament teaching of Paul, legalism -- whether Jewish, Christian or other -- is bad, but living according to God's Torah is good.

B. A Question of Authority

One persistently dividing thorn in Christendom's side has been the question of authority. Who has the authority to preach the gospel and dispense the ordinances? Is authority a lineal one, based on apostolic succession as Catholics, Mormons and others claim? Is there only one "true" Church on the earth at any one time? Or is authority based solely on the Word -- the Scriptures -- as most Protestants would maintain? Or is authority based on other things?

One clue is to be found in an oft mistranslated passage in the New Testament on "Binding and Loosing":

"I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt.18:18, NIV).

Quite incredible claims -- vain and arrogant claims for the most part -- have been made by denominations who have not understood this passage. Souls have been consigned to hell or released from sin by mere human fiat on the basis of this passage. Man has supposed that he has had access to great supernatural power even though there has not been the slightest bit of evidence outwardly for such claims. Typically, some religious leaders will claim exclusive possession to the keys to heaven so that access to heaven is solely through them or their particular denomination. Whole denominations, some numbering in the millions, stand or fall on this and related scriptural passages. A little knowledge of Greek would have spared numerous Christians from being deluded by the pretenses and spiritual blackmailing of ambitious and unscrupulous men.

The correct translation of the Greek words for "bind" and "loose" ought to be "prohibit" and "permit". This reflects the first-century Jewish application of these concepts to their leaders, who were understood as having authority from God to decide, by revelation, what practices should be followed by the community, i.e. to determine halakah. In verses 18-20 Jesus transfers this power from the rabbis to His own disciples or talmidim, and specifically to his apostles. The authority was not assumed instantaneously, nor was it assumed later when it should have been. But the fact that Christians have hitherto made little use of Jesus' far-reaching grant of authority does not cancel it.

Why has it not been used? Simply, because there has been little "unity in the faith". The early Church schismatised over doctrinal disputes, popes excommunicated each other, and generally brought such authority into disrepute.

The New Covenant Church of God teaches that the authority of any Christian is in proportion to the Light that is within him. Jesus, though exercising the legitimate outward authority of a Rabbi, let His own works and superior teaching be His authority. He never fell back on a legalistic ordination to justify Himself. He never claimed a papal or priesthood authority (as Catholics and Mormons do) nor did He claim the Scriptures as His final authority (as Protestants do), though He certainly accepted and recognised the authority of Scripture and possessed legal, outer Priesthood ordination to do and say what He did. The final authority that Jesus claimed was based on what the Holy Spirit witnessed to others, and this is the ultimate authority that the New Covenant Church of God claims also.

In other words, ultimate authority is based on one's own spirituality and righteousness and obedience to the Law. Throughout His ministry, the Church leaders of the day tried to trip Jesus up by finding some fault with His observance of the Law. But He observed it to the full, even to being married and having children as was required of an ordained Rabbi. (In 1873 M. Clermont Ganneau discovered a sarcophagus near Bethany, containing crosses but none of the usual symbols of Jewish burials. Buried in these sarcephagi were: "Salome, wife of Judah; Judah, son of Eleazer (Lazarus); Eleazer (Lazarus), the son of Nathan; MARTHA, daughter of Pesach; SIMEON, son of JESUS, "the Priest"; SALOM-ZION, daughter of Simeon").

The New Covenant Church of God uses the mandate given by Christ to determine the conduct of its own religious community. This authority is exercised by the Apostles. All denominations have the right to establish a rule of conduct for their people but must accept responsibility for the authority that is given. The leaders of all churches must be accountable at the last day. What the leaders of Churches do not have authority to do is to say whether an individual soul will be finally and ultimately saved or go to hell at the last day -- only God has this right (or the knowledge) to do so. Their authority extends only within their own particular community sphere, i.e. amongst those who accept their authority, within this life. This preserves the balance of authority and individual free agency that Jesus so clearly taught in the New Testament.

Implications: The Christian Torah Restored

This has, necessarily, been a technical exploration but an important one if we are to recapture some of the original message of the New Testament.

Perhaps, now, we can understand the forcefulness of Jesus's own words when He said:

"Do not think I have come to abolish the Law (Torah) or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to complete them and give them real meaning. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, nor the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law (Torah) until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law (Torah), you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matt.5:17-20, Inspired NIV).

Will anyone dispute the words of the Master? Shall we "let God and the apostles be liars, and men be true?" Or shall we "Let God be true, and every man a liar" (Rom.3:4). There it stands, plain for all to see. Yet Christendom has tried to alter His teaching! And they have even falsely rendered the original Greek to fit into their pre-conceived doctrine!

The New Covenant is altogether superior to the Old. It offers, through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, forgiveness of sins for those who believe in His Name, repent, and obey His commandments. Our obedience to Torah is indeed the visible fruit of our salvation, which is by faith.

Do you observe the Sabbath? Do you pay your 10% tithe? Do you shun pagan festivals which have become fastened on an apostate Christianity, or do you observe those sanctioned by God? Do you obey the commandment to be married, or do you teach or follow an ascetic, celibate way of life? Do you observe the Ten Commandments? Have you compromised the Law of Chastity? If you are a farmer, do you allow your fields to lie fallow one year in seven? Do you, like the Rechabites, follow the priestly way of abstaining from alcohol? Do you actually know what the Torah teaches, or have you only ever been taught the New Testament?

It is our prayer that in the light of the true teachings of Jesus you will not neglect to study the Torah but understand that its statutes are eternal. Only then can the Christian Gospel be truly "full-filling" for you. It is important to remember, though, that Jesus has reformed much of the Torah, such as doing away with animal sacrifices (through His own atoning death), abolishing the law of circumcision, elevating the sanctity of marriage, abolishing the old dietary restrictions, and so on. You should therefore carefully compare the New Testament Torah carefully with the Old. What Jesus did not reform or abolish therefore still stands today within the context of the freeing power of God's Grace.

An Invitation

If you would like to know more about the New Covenant Church of God and its mission to restore the Apostolic New Testament Church, please get in contact with us.