Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":
The New Covenant truths were the central issues in the 1888 message story. Young Waggoner had been gifted by the Lord with an understanding that far surpassed that of his silver-haired elder brethren. Ellen White declared that the Lord had done this for him. She said, “Since I made the statement last Sabbath that the view of the covenants as it had been taught by Brother [E. J.] Waggoner was truth, it seems that great relief has come to many minds” (Letter to Uriah Smith 59, 1890).
Old Covenant thinking on the part of sincere Christians who want to follow Jesus “genders to bondage” (Gal. 4:24). It’s tragic that they do not realize that the Old Covenant ideas that have enslaved their thinking are a counterfeit of the pure, true gospel. They wonder why their “Christian experience” is so disappointing; they do not know the truth of the New Covenant. They assume therefore that the gospel is impotent, when they have inherited only a distorted view of it.
The Old Covenant was formally endorsed by the leaders of Israel at Mt. Sinai when they got together and voted to respond to the Lord’s Good News Gospel declaration of what He would do for them, “All that the Lord hath spoken, we will do” (Ex. 19:8; in a matter of days they were worshipping a golden calf!).
The Lord never asked them to make that promise! When the Lord in Genesis 15:6 called Abraham out of his tent to count the stars of the Milky Way and declared to him as a divine promise, “So shall thy seed be,” He did not ask the patriarch to make any promise in return! Abraham’s job was to believe His divine promise.
God’s promise was one-sided. And when Abraham did believe, the Lord graciously “counted it to him for righteousness” (15:6). That’s what He does for all of us; our promises to Him are vain.
Worse, because the Lord does not call for such vain promises, the whole system is lethal, producing “bondage.”
Now, let us walk in the bright sunshine of the New Covenant promises of God.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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