But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31:33-34
Under the Old Covenant most people did not know God, even though they were under His covenant and grace. Only in the New Covenant does every person know God.
In that he says, A new covenant, he has made the first old. Now that which decays and grows old is ready to vanish away. Hebrews 8:13
Therefore, wherever professing Christians still don’t really know God then they must still be clinging onto the Old Covenant, for in the New everyone knows God, without exception.
Much of Christianity is at best a mixture of the Old and New Covenants. Even with people who claim to be Spirit-filled, often their understanding of Church and life is more Old Covenant than New : priests, temples, incense, holy days, liturgies, traditions… and their conscience is still in bondage to the performance of a whole list of stuff which Jesus actually nailed to the Cross once and for all.
Ian Vincent 
September 17, 2013 at 9:08 am
I believe that “knowing God” is a promise that can come to pass with the passage of time. It is not automatic. When one is “born again”, one is “born of the Spirit” and the scriptures make the point that one who is “born of the Spirit” must also “grow in the Spirit”. Preachers today should not be teaching people what to do or not do but how to have that “personal relationship with the Spirit of God” in order to be led by Him. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are called the sons of God.” “if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law.”
September 17, 2013 at 10:08 am
Welcome, Michael.
This passage comes to mind:
Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ:
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who has called us to glory and virtue:
By which are given unto us exceedingly great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
And for this reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge self control; and to self control patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness love.
For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But he that lacks these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Therefore rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if you do these things, you shall never fall:
For so an entrance shall be provided unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them, and are established in the present truth.
(2 Peter 1:1-12)
Also:
Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
(2 Cor 3:17-18)
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And by this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
(1 John 2:3)
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Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. In this is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
(1 John 4:15-17)
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That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if indeed I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
(Php 3:10-14)
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We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all toward each other abounds;
(2 Thess 1:3)
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Therefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking, As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby:
(1 Peter 2:1-2)
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That we from now on be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, who is the head, even Christ:
(Eph 4:14-15)
September 18, 2013 at 10:30 am
Hi Ian, It is good to have a place to discuss or dear Lord and the things concerning Him. As you stated in your original piece, Christianity today is actually a mixture of both Old and New Covenants. This means that “a lack of knowledge” still exist among believers and it is up to us who have been blessed with a proper understanding of the Covenant of Grace through Faith, to spread the truth around. In your reply to me you quoted quite a few scripture verses including “If you love me then keep My commandments.” In Eph.2;15 it states that Jesus “abolished in His flesh, the law of commandments contained in ordinances.” In other places in the bible it is made clear that “we are not under the law” anymore so that was a bit confusing.
My understanding of the Covenant is as follows, You declare your belief in Jesus Christ and accept Him as Lord and Savoir, and at that very moment “you receive the Holy Spirit.” This is how God keeps His promise to “write His laws” on our hearts and minds and inward parts, as per Jer.31:31-34. This is repeated in Hebrews 8:6-13.
In 2Cor.3;3 it is made clear that every Epistle of Christ is written inside of us, “not with ink” as the bible is and “not in tables of stone” as Moses received the Commandments, but “with the Spirit of the living God” and ” in the fleshly tables of the heart.”
In that promise it is made clear that the covenant will “not be as the first” and that every believer “who understands what has taken place” will have the opportunity to know God by receiving knowledge from the indwelling Holy Spirit.
This receiving of the Spirit does not “make us perfect”, and that’s where grace kicks in. As we struggle to understand God’s ways and overcome the flesh, God only looks at our hearts desire towards Him and not the short time we may go wrong. As a matter of fact God refused to deliver the Apostle Paul from something he had no control over and confessed three times. We are no different, we sin all the time, maybe in thought only but it is still sin and God has provided Grace or unmerited favor for us. “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” says it all. 1John 2: 27 confirms the promise of Jer.31 by stating,” But the anointing which ye have received of Him abides in you, and ye need not that any man teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you of all things.” From my own experiences and the apostle Paul seems to confirm this fact, it takes about fourteen years to reach to the point where you can safely “minister the Spirit” to others. It is key, though, that the believer’s understanding must be that “it is not I but Christ that dwells in me.”
September 18, 2013 at 12:08 pm
Hi Michael,
The gospel is justification by faith. The person who is justified by faith in Jesus then loves Him and wants to obey His commands. This love and obedience is the proof that their faith is genuine, for we know people by their fruit.
When we are justified by faith and not the law, then the moral law is fulfilled in us. We bear the fruit of the Spirit.
It doesn’t make us perfect in practice, but He does instantly impute the perfect righteousness of His Son to us, so we are perfect in His sight. Justification is instantaneous and makes us perfect in the sight of God. Sanctification is a process.
Paul’s thorn in the flesh was not sin. God never causes anyone to sin, or allows anyone to sin. Paul said he lived in all good conscience before God.
That may be your testimony. If you are sinning all the time then you are in big trouble. What you may mean is that you are not perfect and that indwelling sin remains in you.
You can have wrong thoughts, and even wrong attitudes at times and even words which are far below perfect, but that doesn’t necessarily equate with sin. It is the old sin nature, the old man, which must be denied and put off. You can struggle with all these aspects of the old nature and still not sin. Actual sin is a willful choice one makes, it’s a stepping over the line.
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.
(James 1:13-15)
James describes a process of a man who toys with the idea of sinning and who doesn’t immediately reject any wrong thoughts but rather entertains them, then the next step is sin. If he had rejected the thoughts he would not have sinned. The thoughts which came into his mind were not in themselves sin. Even the wrong things he felt inside were not sin until they are acted upon.
1 John has a lot to say about sin:
Whosoever abides in him sins not: whosoever sins has not seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for his nature remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever does not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loves not his brother.
(1John 3:6-10)
We know that whosoever is born of God sins not; but he that is begotten of God keeps himself, and that wicked one touches him not.
(1John 5:18)
So, John is not talking about perfection of thought, word, attitude and deed. He is talking about willful sin, about being held in the power and bondage of sin so that one commits it habitually. He says that habitual sin no longer characterizes the believer’s life, they have been delivered from it’s power.
But if they sin they can confess and be cleansed (1 John 1:9).