Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8)
Some say God divides time into seasons, or dispensations, each carrying its own message, like pages in a book He writes for us. To Abraham, He gave the Covenant of Abraham, choosing him to begin a special people, Israel, a nation standing tall like a single tree on an open hill, meant to show the world the one true God. This Covenant of Abraham, born in the dust of his travels, was a light kindled to draw all people to their Creator.
Through Moses, God gave the Covenant of the Law, a clear picture of His perfect ways. Like a mountain too high for us to climb, the Covenant of the Law showed His holiness, a standard we could never reach. God’s measure is Himself, and only perfection will do. So, the cost of turning away, of choosing sin over His path, was heavy, showing how deeply He hates evil. We see this in the fire that fell on Sodom and Gomorrah, in the flood that washed the earth, in the judgment on the Amalekites and Amorites, people lost in their own wrongs.
But God’s judgment was never sudden. For years, His warnings fell like gentle rain, giving people time to turn back, to choose His mercy. This kindness answers those who call the God of the Old Testament harsh or angry. Their words are like whispers lost in a storm, for they miss the love woven through every act of God, a love that shines even in His warnings.
Still, our story is one of faltering steps. We cannot keep the Covenant of the Law, our hearts too weak, our efforts too small. We needed a Savior, someone to walk the Law’s hard path without falling. And who but God could do this? From the moment sin darkened Eden, God promised a Savior, the Word, His Son, who would come as Jesus, a name meaning rescue. Like a stream flowing from a hidden spring, His coming was promised, bringing hope to a thirsty world.
Jesus lived under the Covenant of the Law, from Moses to John the Baptist, as it says: “The law and the prophets were until John” (Luke 16:16). When asked how to find eternal life, He said, “Keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:16-17). So, it surprises many that the Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — are rooted in the Old Testament, carrying the weight of the Covenant of the Law and its promises.
Only in His final days, as the cross stood like a shadow over Him, did Jesus reveal the New Covenant, sealed in His blood. He, the same God who spoke to prophets and moved seas, said He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil it, to bring its purpose to completion (Matthew 5:17). To fulfil the Law is to show its true aim: to reveal our need for a Savior, for we cannot meet God’s perfect standard. Jesus, by living the Law perfectly, became the answer to our failure, the one who carries our burdens as a shepherd carries a lamb.
Christ Jesus came not to judge but to save, offering grace like a gift of morning light. But the Jews, hoping for a Messiah like a mighty king, like David in battle, turned away. They wanted a lion but found a lamb, gentle and humble. The Scriptures told of two comings: one to save, one to rule. Their hearts, set on earthly power, missed the Savior standing before them.
When they rejected Him, salvation’s promise flowed out, like a river reaching new lands, to the Gentiles. Christ took on all sin, as Romans 11 says, for a blindness covered Israel until the Gentiles were gathered, and then all Israel would be saved. This began the Covenant of the Grace of God, a secret kept during Jesus’ life, shown only after His resurrection. Through Paul, the Holy Spirit said: “But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).
This Covenant of the Grace of God, like a quiet stream in a dry land, flows until the last Gentile is saved. Then comes God’s judgment, earned by a world that turns away. Christ will return, not as a lamb but as a king, strong and glorious, to judge as He did in the days of Noah, Sodom, and Jonah. The prophets and Revelation tell of this day, when He will claim the earth, and every kingdom will kneel, like waves returning to the sea.
Let us pause here and allow this truth to rest in our hearts: because of Jesus’ sacrifice, the punishments of the Covenant of the Law — its fire, its flood — are gone. He took every sin upon Himself, a weight no one else could bear. This is what some miss, seeing only a gap between the God of the Law and the God of Grace. They cannot see the steady thread of God’s love.
Indeed, since it is so fundamentally straightforward, based on what the Scripture says, those that do not want to believe (as opposed to ‘cannot’) will simply label the messenger as a ‘fundamentalist’, as if this is somehow a bad thing, and deny, deny, deny. Yet Scripture shines with clarity: the YHWH of the Old Testament is the Jesus of the New, one and the same (John 12:39-41 with Isaiah 6:1-3; Hebrews 1:10-13 with Psalm 102:25; 1 Peter 2:4-8 with Isaiah 8:13-14). The evidence is as bright as a noonday sun, unyielding in its truth.
We are all sinners, frail as autumn leaves, and none is good but God alone. Jesus Himself said, “I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own” (John 10:14), and again, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:17). From the fall, humanity has been marked by sin, deserving judgment, and some have received it. Yet in this age, because of Christ, God extends grace, a gift as vast as the heavens, which so many fail to see. They stumble over the word “grace,” not because it is hidden, but because it is too radiant, too generous, for their shadowed hearts to hold.