The New Covenant in the Bible is the following:
"For this is
the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts:
and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
"And they shall not
teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
"For I will be
merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I
remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)
This is the New Covenant, the promise that God's grace is forever shed upon the earth:
"11For the grace of God
that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12Teaching us that,
denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and
godly, in this present world; 13Looking for that
blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ; 14Who gave himself for
us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a
peculiar people, zealous of good works." (Titus 2: 11-14)
"Blessed hope" is more than some humanistic, sappy, sorrowful "maybe so", but a certainty, based on "Yea and Amen":
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according
to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," (1 Peter 1: 3)
"Living hope" , not "about to be born hope" or "dying hope",and this hope lives in every believer:
"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this
mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:" (Colossians 1: 27)
Jesus Christ is our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30) and in Him we are made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 21)
Righteousness is the key to the New Covenant, because in righteousness, we have a perfect standing before God the Father, one in which none of our sins are remembered forever. Every believer is made the righteousness of God in Christ.
Now comes the wicked essence of AA and any other Twelve Step Program. . .
The Twelve Steps teaches people to "take their inventory, but for us to justify ourselves by rule-keeping will frustrate the grace of God in our lives:
"Christ is become of
no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen
from grace." (Galatians 5:4)
The New Covenant replaces the Old Covenant, which was based on keeping the Ten Commandments, then offering sacrifices because no one can keep the law. In fact, the law was brought in so that every man would stop justifying himself and recognize his need for a savior (Romans 3: 19-20). Paul writes it this way:
"23But before faith
came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards
be revealed. 24Wherefore the law
was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified
by faith. 25But after that
faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." (Galatians 3: 23-25)
God wants us to get rid of the law, or "cast out the bondwoman", if you will (Galatians 4: 28-30)
The writer of Hebrews could not make it any clearer:
"In that he saith, A
new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and
waxeth old is ready to vanish away." (Hebrews 8: 13)
The Old Covenant had faults, in large part because we human beings could not keep it. AA brings in the law once again, telling people to "work a program" which no one can work.
Righteousness is the key to all good things, not taking your inventory, for Jesus said that when we receive His righteousness, then all other things will be added unto us (Matthew 6: 33)
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