If I make you a promise, what can you do to make sure I keep my promise? The answer is nothing. The burden is always on the one making the promise. They are telling the truth and capable of keeping their word or they are telling a lie, unfaithful to their own words, and perhaps incapable of keeping the promise. If we decide to take a person at their word, to believe what they say, the only thing we can do is trust they will follow through. The burden is theirs.

Many followers of Christ insist that we must keep the law, that God demands change, that God demands man’s works righteousness to keep His promise. In other words, they treat God’s promise as a conditional promise when Jesus did not make us a conditional promise other than to believe.

“For God so loved the world,  that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” John 3:16-18 ESV

In treating Jesus promise as conditional, many sincere believers have taken a burden upon themselves that is not theirs. Instead of believing the truth that Jesus has fully qualified us and made us righteous, in error they live like Jesus only finished a portion of the necessary work and watches to see if we qualify to be saved.

Giving thanks to the Father, WHO HAS QUALIFIED YOU to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Col 1:12-13 ESV

Study: Jesus Did Not Die to See If We Can Qualify

The law demanded righteousness from bankrupt humanity. Grace provides righteous.

They have mixed the Old Covenant that man could never fulfill because it demanded man keep the law to be righteous, with the New Covenant of grace that provides righteousness to bankrupt humanity. Under the Old Covenant, God’s blessings were clearly based upon man’s ability to be righteous of their own accord. If he failed at any point, just one time, one sin, the law brought a curse upon him. Under the New Covenant, Jesus shed His righteous blood for us so we could become the righteousness of God in Christ.

We cannot be any more righteous, right with God than we are right now by the blood of Jesus.

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Rom 10:4

Who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Rom 4:25

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor 5:21 ESV

The demands the law had put upon us and the curse for our failure were taken from us by Jesus when he became a curse for us on the cross.

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. Gal 3:10-14 ESV

Study: Stop Disqualifying Yourself

God’s Promise

When someone makes you a promise, what is paramount so that you will believe their promise and be able to rest assured it will be fulfilled? Is it not the character and the ability of the person making the promise? In this case, we have a promise maker who cannot lie and is all powerful.

God cannot lie.

In the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, Titus 1:2 NAS

God is all-powerful, fully capable of honoring His Word.

Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it: Isa 42:5 ESV

We have a promise maker who cannot deny His own nature.

If we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself. 2 Tim 2:13 ESV

We have a promise maker who is faithful to His word, even if we are unfaithful.

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Rom 3:3-4a ESV

These truths allow all who take God at His Word to rest peacefully by faith in His promise.

For we who have believed enter that rest… Heb 4:3a ESV

Study: If You Believe You Have Been Saved

Think of this - Jesus is the Word. Do you for one moment think the Father would be unfaithful to what the Word, Jesus, has accomplished?

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 ESV

If our righteousness was based upon what we do, God could never make the following promise. This promise can only be made because our righteousness is from God who qualifies us, a gift we receive by faith.

No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD. Isa 54:17 KJV

Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies (makes righteous). Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Rom 8:33-34 ESV (emphasis mine)

Study: I AM THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN CHRIST

We have the very best promise maker possible. One whose nature is love, who cannot lie and is all powerful. Leave the burden where it belongs, with the promise maker and enter God’s rest found only in Jesus Christ our savior.

Here is one more promise for you, the question is, do you believe it? …“It is finished,”… John 19:30

Many more New Covenant Bible Studies HERE. Jesus poured out His blood for the New Covenant of grace and truth, replacing the Old Covenant law of Moses. Believers are exclusively under the New Covenant, the last will and testament of Jesus that began after the cross.

And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood. Luke 22:20 NASB

New Covenant Bible Studies