"..Jesus has been given priestly work which is superior to theirs,..the covenant which he arranged between God and his people is a better one, because it is based on promises of better things. If there had been nothing wrong with the first covenant, there would have been no need for a second one..By speaking of a new covenant, God has made the first one old; and anything that becomes old and worn out will soon disappear." (Hebrews 8:6-13 GNB)

paradigm, paradigm shift - From the Greek word paradhma (paradigma),... a paradigm is simply the predominant worldview in the realm of human thought..A paradigm shift occurs when cultures transform their way of thinking from one thought system to another. For instance, prior to Copernicus and Galileo (ca. 1600), most people believed that astral bodies revolved around the earth (geocentrism); but after the Copernican Revolution (ca. 1600), it became obvious that the earth revolved around the sun (heliocentrism) -- thus, a major paradigm shift occurred from geocentrism to heliocentrism..Simply put, then, a paradigm shift is a pivotal change in humanity's way of thinking regarding a particular worldview.

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In part 9 (click here to read it), we looked at the fact that trying to live under the old covenant was a backward step. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to want to do so.

[I]. There is a tendency for Gentiles to vie towards the law that the Jews could not fulfill. When it was never meant for them and fell short of the superior results to be achieved through the spirit.

1. "I marvel that you so soon are being moved away from Him who called you into the grace of Christ, to another gospel, which is not another, but some are troubling you, and desiring to pervert the gospel of Christ." (Galatians 1:6-7 MKJV)

2. "O foolish Galatians, who bewitched you not to obey the truth, to whom before your eyes Jesus Christ was written among you crucified? This only I would learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, do you now perfect yourself in the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it is even in vain? Then He supplying the Spirit to you and working powerful works in you, is it by works of the law, or by hearing of faith?" (Galatians 3:1-5 MKJV)

3. "Some of you would like to be under the rule of the Law of Moses. But do you know what the Law says? In the Scriptures we learn that Abraham had two sons. The mother of one of them was a slave, while the mother of the other one had always been free. The son of the slave woman was born in the usual way. But the son of the free woman was born because of God's promise. All of this has another meaning as well. Each of the two women stands for one of the agreements God made with his people. Hagar, the slave woman, stands for the agreement that was made at Mount Sinai. Everyone born into her family is a slave. Hagar also stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and for the present city of Jerusalem. She and her children are slaves. But our mother is the city of Jerusalem in heaven above, and she isn't a slave. The Scriptures say about her, "You have never had children, but now you can be glad. You have never given birth, but now you can shout. Once you had no children, but now you will have more children than a woman who has been married for a long time." My friends, you were born because of this promise, just as Isaac was. But the child who was born in the natural way made trouble for the child who was born because of the Spirit. The same thing is happening today. The Scriptures say, "Get rid of the slave woman and her son! He won't be given anything. The son of the free woman will receive everything." My friends, we are children of the free woman and not of the slave." (Galatians 4:21-31 CEV)

[II]. This insistence of gentiles living under an outdated covenant to which they have no claim finds it's roots in the delusion that we can fulfill the it and thereby gain the right to glory in our performance. This gives rise to a tendency to make comparative claims about how we arrived at salvation. A fallacy that God refused to sponsor and one that He created the old covenant to expose.

1. "It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah. Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing." (Ephesians 2:1-10 MSG)

2. We're not, understand, putting ourselves in a league with those who boast that they're our superiors. We wouldn't dare do that. But in all this comparing and grading and competing, they quite miss the point. We aren't making outrageous claims here. We're sticking to the limits of what God has set for us. But there can be no question that those limits reach to and include you. (2 Corinthians 10:12-13 MSG)

3. "If such is the case, is the law, then, an anti-promise, a negation of God's will for us? Not at all. Its purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise. For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time."

(Galatians 3:21 MSG)

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Deceived

What else do you call those

Who try so hard to be

In their own strength

What they already are in Him

Seeing that the harder

They tried

The less they manifest

Who they are

Yet they refuse

To give up self effort

Give in to His finished work

And simply be

Who they really are

In Him

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Selah

(To be continued..)

click here to read part 11

To view others instalments in the series, click here