The Naked Gospel: Truth You May Never Hear in Church Read Online Free PDF

put aside money to purchase a brand-new car. Once you have enough saved, you call the dealership to negotiate a price. Fortunately, the dealer agrees to let the car go at a price you can afford. Within the hour, you’re in the dealership to close the deal. The price with delivery charges, taxes, and tags comes out to $19,550.00. A great deal. You happily sign the paperwork and take the car home. It’s finally yours!
    More than a year later, you receive a peculiar message in your voice mailbox. It’s from the dealership. You recognize the salesman’s voice as he explains that he accidentally charged you too little for the vehicle. He says you owe $2,000.00 more on the car. Heinvites you to the dealership so you can redraft the sales contract and “work things out.”
    After the message ends, you stand there in disbelief. You look at the calendar and begin counting the days. It’s been 430 days since you signed the contract to purchase the car! How can they do this? Can they do this? It’s time to call your attorney.
    Your legal counsel explains that the dealership is out of line. They can’t require you to change the terms of the contract you signed 430 days ago. If they could force a person to renegotiate after signing, no one would ever place confidence in a contract.
    Now see if you can catch the parallel between your car purchase turned sour and Paul’s point about the New—the New that was promised to Abraham:
Even though it is only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it…What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.
    G ALATIANS 3:15, 17 NASB, italics added
    The promise of the New was made to Abraham not 430 days but 430 years before the law. Just as the car dealership couldn’t legally renegotiate a contract previously signed, the covenant made to Abraham was not renegotiated just because the law came on the scene later.
    Hundreds of years
separate the
promise of the
New from the Old.
    Although not in effect yet, the New was promised to Abraham and ratified by God himself. The fact that 430 years later the law was introduced does not affect the stipulations of the covenant previously ratified. So hundreds of years separate the promise of the New from the Old. We shouldn’t mixthem together, nor should we extract elements from the Old and impose them on the New. That’s a breach of contract.
    While introducing the New, we’ve already spent significant time in Hebrews. Hebrews may well be the least-studied epistle among Christians today. Essentially, it’s a lengthy argument for abandonment of the Old and adoption of the New. Its style reads like that of a brilliant trial lawyer, and Hebrews alone can put to rest many of the issues dividing Christians today. Throughout The Naked Gospel, you’ll get to know Hebrews and other New Testament letters that shout in unison, “Jesus plus nothing.”

6
    H AVE YOU EVER HAD TO SLIP ON SOMEONE ELSE’S SHOES ? I F SO, YOU know what it’s like to wear something that’s not made for you. At first glance, the shoes may appear similar to any of your own. But they simply don’t match the dimensions of your foot.
    In the same way, we’re informed that the law of Moses is indeed for someone—but it’s not a good fit for New Testament believers. Paul wrote to Timothy:
We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious…And it is for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.
    1 T IMOTHY 1:8-11, italics added
    What purpose does the law serve? Paul says that it is exclusively for un believers. Under the Old, God recognized two kinds of people—Jews