THE COVENANT --
THE SUPREMACY OF CHRIST SERIES, PART 9

Matthew 20:1-16, Jeremiah 31:31-37 (NASB)
David Bruce Linn, Pastor-Teacher
21 May 2006
All Rights Reserved, www.breakfree.org

The 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Stanley Kubrick, is considered one of the most important films of the twentieth century. It depicts a theory of evolutionary development of mankind from apes to eternal spirit beings. In the beginning of the film we see prehistoric apes confronted with a tall black alien obelisk, a rectangular solid, which causes the ape community to experience a quantum evolutionary leap to tool usage and war. The film then leaps to modern man who again faces the appearance of the alien obelisk, this time on the moon.

A spacecraft is sent to Io, one of the moons of Jupiter, to investigate another obelisk which has been discovered there. To make a long psychedelic story short, an astronaut named Dave is transported by the alien obelisk to the far side of the galaxy where he lives out his life in what appears to be a French provincial hotel suite in space. All of Dave's needs are cared for, presumably by the aliens, until at the end of his life the obelisk reappears at the foot of Dave's bed to usher him into the next monumental step of human evolution. As Dave lays there, a shriveled old man taking his last breath, he reaches out to the obelisk to embrace what it apparently is offering him.

Suddenly Dave is transformed into a huge infant in some kind of space womb on the bed. He has apparently gone through the door of death by evolving into a star child, eternal, free to roam the universe and discover his newly evolved self. The film closes to the music of Richard Strauss's Thus Spake Zarathustra, which is itself a celebration of the Nietzschean ubermensch, or superman--the man above all other men. As the star child looks down upon the earth from space he gives an unspoken but implied blessing: What I have become you soon shall be. The film takes the favorite idea of the Nazis and presents it as the next step of human evolution where we become eternal spirit beings, unbounded by time and space. Oddly, the film propounds that people like us, once we become eternal spirit beings, will automatically follow an implied covenant of blessing toward those on the earth who are still living in human bodies and yearning for their evolution.

1. LOOKING FOR ANSWERS TO THE DEEPEST HUMAN QUESTIONS

Almost no one understood the film when it was released, but it sparked a popular trend among the postmoderns of that time. Hippies would come to the theater, lie down on the floor directly below the screen, take a hit of LSD, then experience the film in that "insightful" way. As amusingly improbable as the plot of the film sounds, it is actually promoting spiritual concepts which have great currency today. The recent media gushes about the gnostic document so-called The Gospel of Judas as well as the blockbuster book and film, The DaVinci Code, are carefully designed evangelistic efforts for the same idea of human evolution contained in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

What is most improbable is the hypothesis that when beings such as ourselves evolve, we will rise to a position where we extend grace to everyone and everything. I understand why people yearn for such a development, but there is simply no reason to presume an implied covenant of blessing from such spirit beings. Honest followers of New Age thinking today admit that they have no way to determine if the spirit beings to whom they have opened themselves are good or evil. It is grace and benevolence which they want from these beings, but there is no way to ensure that outcome. We simply cannot get consistent grace and benevolence from humans on earth, and moving the problem to outer space and eternity does not improve the situation at all.

What is vital for all Christians today to see about this trend in spirituality is that people are starting to admit their spiritual needs after a long dark night of deprivation caused by the modern period in Western culture. They yearn to know that they have a future after death, that they have a place in the universe, that someone is looking down on them from heaven with a desire to help them. Christians already know the answers to these questions, but until the others are ready to listen they will continue to seek the answers elsewhere. That's why believers in Christ must understand the real answers to the spiritual needs of the human soul and we must stand ready to deliver them whenever the Lord provides an opportunity.

2. ANSWERS ONLY FOUND IN A COVENANT WITH A SUPREME BEING

Jesus told a parable found in Matthew 20:1-16 which provides four specific answers to the spiritual questions of the human soul. These answers are wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ, and in every case they turn on his supremacy. If he is not supreme, then he cannot deliver what we need. If he is supreme, then he is the only answer for our deepest needs. Furthermore, we are depicted as needing to make a covenant--an agreement--with this supreme being.

The parable begins this way: "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard" (Matthew 20:1). The first thing we learn is that we have a Master, not a spiritual adviser, and that we are his workers. The term in the original Greek for "landowner" is a compound word which could be translated literally as "house-despot." A despot is one who holds total control, and the owner of property in ancient times was seen in this way. The landowner held total sway over his property and was the boss of everyone he hired to work on his property.

In the worldview of 2001:A Space Odyssey we ourselves become spiritual authorities and advisers for others when we become star children. There is no great ruler, no house-despot, overseeing our work. This is the worldview of The Gospel of Judas and The DaVinci Code. It is a pleasing thought to imagine that in the end we'll all be OK and that we ourselves become gods who are beholden to no omnipotent God. By contrast, Christ explained that our place in the universe is as laborers under One who is both Owner of it all and Boss. Christ explicitly asserted this about himself in the first part of verse fifteen: "'Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own?'" King David said the same thing about the Lord: "The earth is the LORD'S, and all it contains, /The world, and those who dwell in it. /For He has founded it upon the seas /And established it upon the rivers" (Psalm 24:1-2). Moses before him said the same thing when the Lord pummeled Israel with hailstones as a punishment: "Moses said to him, 'As soon as I go out of the city, I will spread out my hands to the LORD; the thunder will cease and there will be hail no longer, that you may know that the earth is the LORD'S'" (Exodus 9:29). Because the earth and everything on it belong to the Lord he can do with it whatever he wants.

This is not a bad thing! The landowner in the parable, as a picture of God, is maintaining a working household with flocks and fields and laborers. We all would prefer to be the landowner, but the parable tells us that we fit into God's environment, not the other way around. The parable shows the landowner watching out for his workers and giving them useful things to do which benefit them also. They are not slaves, and they are not paid workers assigned to do meaningless things. There is a tremendous resolution in the human soul when we accept the supreme authority of God the Son and take our divinely-designed place in his universe.

Secondly, the main portion of the parable reveals the supreme righteousness of Christ: "When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; and to those he said, 'You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.' And so they went. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why have you been standing here idle all day long?' They said to him, 'Because no one hired us.' He said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.' When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.' When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, saying, 'These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day'" (Matthew 20:2-12).

The first group of workers have a complaint against the landowner because they worked all day and were paid the same as other groups who worked less. They were most egregiously offended by the last group of workers who did not start working until five o'clock. This raises the question of the righteousness of the landowner. Was his treatment of his workers fair or not? Many people have the same question about Jesus Christ today.

The key is found in the covenant, or agreement, which the landowner made with each group of laborers. The Lord Jesus Christ Christ is, of course, supreme in righteousness. Who can bring a charge against God himself? But the point of the parable is that this Master, in contrast to all other masters, is more than fair, he is supremely merciful. You see, the agreement which this Master made with his laborers was not the expected "pay for work" arrangement. Why not? Because no one's work pays for God's grace. No one is entitled to receive anything from God, no matter how hard they work. And pay for work is not the covenant which God makes with everyone who believes.

The covenant which Jesus Christ makes with every person was prophesied six centuries before Christ by Jeremiah as recorded in the thirty first chapter, beginning with verse thirty one: "'Behold, days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,' declares the LORD. 'But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,' declares the LORD, 'I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,' declares the LORD, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more'" (Jeremiah 31:31-34). The words of this covenant were spoken to Israel, and they are fulfilled to all Israel as they place faith in Yeshua as their Messiah. And it is clear that this new covenant with Israel is the very same one offered by Jesus Christ to people of every tribe, tongue, and nation. It is the covenant by which you and I are saved, two millennia after it was initiated by the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

There is so much here that we cannot cover it all, but we must see at least three large provisions made for you and I in the new covenant. First of all, where the first covenant impressed God's laws from the outside of a person to conform them, the new covenant transforms the believer from the inside. If we will trust in him, the Master promises: "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it..." The first covenant did not change people in this way, but the new covenant does. Have you thought with great weariness: "Lord, how will I ever change?" The new covenant brings into your heart the power of God to bring change.

The second large provision of the new covenant is that we will, by trusting Christ, move into a direct relationship with God: "...They will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them..." The personal knowledge of God was not offered under the first covenant. God might establish such a relationship with specific individuals. Moses, for example, was called the friend of God. Under the new covenant, friendship with God would become normal for those who believe, as Christ said to his disciples: "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you" (John 15:15).

Have you ever discovered that someone you thought was your friend was keeping a secret and they were manipulating you rather than telling you what they were thinking? God himself does not do this with any believer under the terms of this new covenant initiated by Jesus Christ. If you cannot see the honor and privilege attached to having God himself as your friend and confidant, well, then, you must be blind! No Jewish person under first covenant had this privilege.

The third blessed provision of the new covenant is the total forgiveness of our sins: "...For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more..." Jeremiah did not know how God would accomplish this level of atonement through the death and resurrection of Christ, but we know now. Under the new covenant, when the holy God looks at you he does not say: "Oh, yeah, that's Heather the woman who slept with all those guys," or "Oh, that's Ryan over there who used to get drunk every Friday and Saturday night, used to lie to his family, and kept a stash of pornography in the bottom of his tool box." No, this Master looks at Heather and Ryan and says: "Look, there are my beloved children!" because he remembers their sin no more.

Do you see that even a star child, should such exist, cannot help you with this? That's why so many people pretend that there is no such thing as sin and judgment. Only a God imbued with supremacy could be ultimately fair with us, and beyond that, usher us into the experience of ultimate mercy. That is what the Master in the parable was expressing toward his workers. Do not ask God for fairness! He has something much better for you in the new covenant.

If we go back to the parable we discover that the Master described there is supremely faithful to keep the covenant he makes with us: "But he answered and said to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?'" (Matthew 20:13). The Master performs the terms of his agreement with each one of us without fail. He will not be pressured by the angry workers into paying them more than the ones he hired at the end of the day. Our God is steadfast in keeping the terms of the new covenant for those who believe as well.

How confident can we be about this? Jeremiah records these promises: "Thus says the LORD, /Who gives the sun for light by day /And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, /Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; /The LORD of hosts is His name: /If this fixed order departs From before Me,' declares the LORD, /'Then the offspring of Israel also will cease /From being a nation before Me forever.' /Thus says the LORD, 'If the heavens above can be measured /And the foundations of the earth searched out below, /Then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel /For all that they have done,' declares the LORD" (Jeremiah 31:35-37). In other words, if the Lord can create and sustain all that you and I can see, then he has the power to keep the terms of the new covenant with those who place their trust in him. This is a claim to supremacy, and makes the new covenant unique among the religions of the world. It was made by One who rules and reigns over all, and he keeps it. All we need to do is keep trusting him and we cannot fail out of it!

The fourth thing we learn about the Master in Jesus' parable is that he is filled with supreme graciousness. To the workers who wanted fairness instead of mercy he says: "'Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?' So the last shall be first, and the first last" (Matthew 20:14-16). Who is able to stop God from acting in grace toward everyone who takes him at his word? Remember that the workers who came later in the day were not told exactly what they would receive, only that they would receive "whatever is right." From God's point of view, grace is what is right. He is supremely gracious, which means that when you and I abandon ourselves to his rule in our lives, nothing in heaven above or on the earth below can stop the flow of his loving favor toward us. We all receive the same grace because we all have the same need for it. That is the lesson of this parable.

CONCLUSION

Through dusty ages of time and the crumbled ruins of civilizations the provisions of the new covenant are still being upheld by our supreme Master who is utterly righteous, merciful, faithful, and gracious. These are the deepest things which every human soul seeks. We have the answer to the most meaningful questions people are asking.

What are we doing with our answers? The first question is whether we ourselves have understood our privilege at the opportunity to know God personally. Those who understand what Jesus Christ is doing through the new covenant will forsake their sins, trust in him with abandon, and follow him to the uttermost parts of the earth. Believers in Christ should be the most peaceful, energized, durable, and sacrificial people on earth.

Our destiny is not to become star children. No mysterious black obelisk will be arriving to usher anyone beyond the need for material bodies and into a state of grace. The stars do not have children, and the spirit beings who push this teaching are liars. They will do anything in their power to keep people from looking to the supreme Master and entering the new covenant. We need to help the men, women, and children of this world by living in our covenant privileges and using every opportunity to help others enter it.