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When men build, it usually happens top-down, outside-in.

In come the diggers and graders. When the dust settles the site has been cleared as man imposes his will on his environment. Once the clearing is done, the meticulous process of construction begins. Everything is by design, and the sequencing is precise. Careful coordination ensures that the trades make their contribution at just the right time. Hardhats huddle and machinery stands. Progress bows to head scratching and problem-solving as unanticipated challenges present themselves. Ingenuity and engineering spar with budgets and other constraints. By torturous toil, something rises out of nothing, or at least appears to do so. Elsewhere, quarries scar the landscape, having offered up their treasures to those who hold the purse strings.

The Lord goes about things a little differently. He works bottom-up and inside-out.

The entire oak is in the acorn. It germinates in soil enriched by the falling leaves of innumerable autumns. Not much to look at, that acorn. Or any other seed, for that matter. But the marvels of DNA ensure that what is embedded in the essential nature of the seed will manifest. What emerges is show-stopping jaw-dropping splendour, should the environment approximate the conducive.

Some would argue that to contrast things thus is to oversimplify. Perhaps. But even in His workings in and through our humanity, these principles can be observed. Remember Abraham and Sarah. The best they could do in their own strength was an Ishmael. God’s purposes unfolded through Isaac. A seed implanted in a barren womb, through whom all the nations of the earth were blessed. And remember when the Israelites left Egypt. Isn’t it amazing that a bunch of ex-slaves could build something as stunning as the tabernacle in that desolate wilderness? No hardware store to visit. No subcontractor to quote on the job. The tabernacle and all its trappings were in the nation’s DNA. All the necessary craftsmanship, as well as more than a little Egyptian loot. With the people living in tents, when God ordered His own, the oak was already nestled in the acorn.

The unfolding story of the church in Acts follows a similar sub-plot. Embedded in the apostolic DNA of the Twelve was all that was needed. The acorn in the upper room to become the oak of the church throughout the Roman Empire. A few chapters in and we have deacons in Jerusalem. A few chapters more and the prophets and teachers show themselves in Antioch. By the time we get to the end of the book the elders, shepherds and evangelists have shown themselves. Amidst a spectacular array of other gifts at that. Everything was in the seed, and Word and Spirit was at work to nurture and develop the unfolding growth. How genius is our God!

Raindrop to rain and acorn to oak is the local church to the bride of Christ. Believer and local church alike are in Christ, and Christ by His Spirit is in them. They are manifestations in the temporal of the glorious, spiritual eternal. This is how the kingdom of heaven colonises earth. New birth. New creations. New nature. New Covenant DNA. With the new then refreshing, renewing, reclaiming and restoring the face of the planet. Death yield to resurrection before this Life-flow.

Let carnal wisdom loose on the building site, and in comes the earth moving equipment. Seeds, saplings and trees alike are swept aside. Scripts are meticulously followed. Hardhats caucus and budgets determine the constraints. With all said and done, dust settled and backs slapped, our achievements can impress. Which is why it’s so ironic that as we stand on the deck drinking champagne, we’re admiring the majestic old oak on the vacant lot next door.

The single greatest problem with the church of our day is control. The unsatisfying result is a work of man, his will imposed. The single greatest facilitator of this control is confusion about the DNA of the New Covenant. Mix law and grace, and the social currencies traded are guilt and condemnation, manipulation, control and abuse. Stay in grace, and the community of faith is nurtured in a milieu of love, acceptance, freedom, encouragement and forgiveness. New Covenant DNA is sufficient to the extraordinary. It invites God’s will, and yields to Him in the outworking. All we need to do is serve it. Instead of lording it over the work of the Lord, perhaps the primary role of leadership is to applaud it. To recognise, celebrate, encourage, facilitate and release what He is doing. And everything that He does is always on the foundation of what He has already done. New Covenant living is never about who we are under, or even who we are with, but about who we are building on. And Jesus is the only foundation worth a mention.

The key ingredients of New Covenant DNA

Making these key components explicit is helpful. So doing underscores how scarce they’ve become in so much of the modern day church. These truths must become our defaults. They are Heaven’s defaults, and the brides defaults. They should therefore be our touchstones in all things at all times.

The New Covenant anchors in Good News about Good God. God is good, and His intentions towards His world are good. He is not looking to judge, but to save. The wages of our sin were visited upon Jesus. Because of this, the Lord can treat us with unmitigated loving-kindness and mercy. Rather than treat us as our sins deserve, He treats us as the father treated the prodigal. Love, acceptance, forgiveness and restoration are ours.

“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.” (John 3:16–17)

The New Covenant is by grace alone through faith alone. We could do nothing to save ourselves. That is why Jesus, another Adam, lived the sinless life we could not live. He then died the death all sinners deserve. His resurrection proved His sacrificial death effective. He is risen, and lives evermore, our Mediator and our Intercessor. God, in Christ, has reconciled us to Himself. The first gift this amazing grace gives us is faith. As grace is revealed to us, so faith rises in us, and we believe. Believing, we receive, and in receiving, we in turn are reconciled to Him and are saved.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8–9)

The New Covenant was cut between Father and Son. Our sin separated them for a moment; His obedience reunited them for eternity. When we believe, we are included in this union. We literally believe into Christ when we believe in Him. His story becomes our story. In a moment we are united with Jesus is his crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection. The Holy Spirit does this for us. He baptises (immerses) us into Christ. We thereby transition through His death and resurrection into irrevocable union with God.

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:3–4)

The New Covenant imparts the gift of righteousness to all who believe. The self-righteousness of the inherently sinful can never produce right standing with God. It’s the righteousness of the Righteous One, Christ Jesus, that is imputed to us. Christians are in right standing before God with the actual right standing of Jesus. The moment of faith effects this great exchange. In that moment, all our sin is removed from us, and all Christ’s righteousness given us. Thus made righteous, no Christian can ever be unrighteous or unholy ever again.

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:21–26)

“For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:14)

The New Covenant places us in Christ. The New Covenant also places Christ in us, by His Spirit. This is an action of re-creation. We are literally born again. The old has gone. The new has come. Christians no longer have the sinful nature they were originally born with. We have a new nature, born of the Spirit, and just like Jesus. It is much more than the Lord merely regarding us as righteous, or treating us as through we were in Christ. He has literally made us righteous, and placed us in Christ. The same is true of our re-creation. This is not just some sort of second chance or new beginning. It is a literal action of creation. In our essence – our spirit – we are made new.

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (II Corinthians 5:16–21)

“By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and He in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgement, because as He is so also are we in this world.” (I John 4:13–17)

Everything in the New Covenant is by the Spirit. We are with the Father. This is through and in Jesus. And it is all by the Spirit. It is the Spirit who grants us revelation of Christ and imparts to us the faith to believe. It is the Spirit who immerses us into Christ when we believe. It is the Spirit who recreates us anew. It is the Spirit who then indwells us, perfecting our union. We are in Christ, and Christ is in us. All this is the Spirit’s doing. From then on, it is the Spirit who enlightens, leads, encourages and empowers. Access into life in Christ is by the Spirit, as is life in Christ from then on. This is definitive.

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” (Romans 8:14)

An impressive supporting cast

The glorious New Covenant is set amidst a most impressive supporting cast. The written Word helps us. We help one another. God Himself harnesses every situation and circumstance for our good. Many things have their origins in sin and satan. The fallen-ness of our planet reflects this. Yet, no matter the author of the crisis or calamity, God uses it for good. Devil bad; God good. Very good, in fact!

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.” (Romans 8:28–30)

Written on another day, this post might well have expressed the key components of New Covenant DNA differently. Other texts may have been used to substantiate the various aspects. Other attempts may have have listed six key components; others eight or more. No matter. The Scriptures are bursting with revelation and are rich in metaphor. What has been said could have been said in innumerable ways. Such is the length, depth, breadth and height of our glorious God and of His Christ. In whom the Spirit shares, and to which the Spirit bears witness through the Word.

Much more important than the packaging is the revelation itself. The New Covenant is altogether other, once-for-all. In the next chapter we’ll observe how every aspect of New Testament church life was a response to the New Covenant. The church made manifest her New Covenant DNA as she grew and developed. The Gospel was the seed planted; the church and all her good fruit the result.

This should come as no surprise, for, “We love because He first loved us.” (I John 4:19)