Matthew 26:27-29 “Drink from it, all of you. This is My blood of the [New AMP, KJV] Covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
With this He sealed those who would be His disciples—those who as He said in John 8:31,32 “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Judas may have been served the cup and the bread, but he did not partake of it willingly, for had he eaten of the bread as Jesus broke it saying, “Take and eat; this is My body..” Matthew 26:26; he must have drawn back thus causing Jesus to serve Judas a piece of bread—the same bread that Jesus had already said, “This is My body…” as it is written in John 13:26,27 Then, dipping the piece of bread, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, son of Simon. As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered him.
Judas held back from drinking and eating the blood and the body—that is the wine and the bread—because it was unclean to eat the flesh of a man and to drink the blood of a man—and this is a disciple—the disciple who is as calculating as they come. This is to a disciple who knew that Mary Magdalene’s perfume was worth a year’s wage, which tells me that Judas was very much aware of the value of things; a man of intelligence in the worldly sense. A man who was calculating—a man who remembered that the person who is now saying that the bread is His body and the wine is His blood is the one who taught them a few days ago “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea’, and does not doubt in his heart but believes what he says will happen, it will be done for him.” Mark 11:23
For Judas, the bread and the wine had really turned to the flesh and blood by the word of Jesus and Judas could not eat of it—and when Jesus served him the bread publicly it was the last straw. This is why it is written in John 13:30 As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. He could not stay. The teaching of Jesus was too much. Not only that, Jesus had forced it on Judas by making him eat the bread that had become flesh. He could not hold to Jesus’ teachings and left…
Disciples are not only those who hold onto Jesus’ teachings, but are prepared to pay the price for Jesus’ teachings—that is the true cost of discipleship, and for any Jew, the cost of Jesus’ teachings included doing something which is worse than unclean according to the Law. To eat the flesh of a man was so forbidden that the Law does not even mention it, and to drink the blood of a living creature according to the Law would have you cut off from God. The cost of discipleship isn’t just to leave your father, mother, brother, sister, houses, and fields as Jesus said in Luke 14:26,27 “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters- yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple.
Jesus Christ was not crucified because He fulfilled the Law as a prophet, but was crucified because He went beyond the Law and announced His Sonship. It was when He answered “Yes, it is as you say” to the question of Matthew 26:63-65 “Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God”, that the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need more witnesses?”
The cost of discipleship is only the entry fee, but the certification of discipleship is when you are prepared to hold on to the teaching of Jesus despite charges of exceeding the Law and being accused of blasphemy. The manifestation of discipleship or rather the proof of discipleship is not whether you have borne the cost or hung onto the teaching of Jesus only, but whether you have obeyed the commandments given to all disciples beginning with the first one. – John 13:34 “A new command I give you: Love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”
You may pay for the cost of your education and you may hold onto all that you were taught jealousy, but the final proof of how good you are in what you have paid to learn is the public. A chef may have paid full fees and cook exactly the way the book says it should be done, but if what he cooks doesn’t sell- he can’t have a restaurant.
So if in your zealousness to pay the cost of discipleship and to hold onto the teachings of discipleship, you fail to let Jesus love you personally; then you are not qualified as a disciple. For to obey the command, you must have been loved personally by Jesus so that you can love one another as He has loved you – not just the corporate love of having saved you upon the cross, but the personal love.
Jesus loved Peter enough to have prayed for Him when Satan sought permission to sieve him, yet when Ananias and Sapphira were tempted and were judged with death, Peter did not bother to pray and raise them both from the dead. —Rather he left them for dead.
Jesus restored Peter even after Peter denied Him 3 times, after Jesus warned him he would. Ananias and Sapphira received no such warning. Yes it was God’s will to kill them as He did, but it is also Jesus’ command that we love one another as He loved us. It should also be written that Ananias and Sapphira remained dead despite the pleas of mercy from Peter for 4 days after they died, and when it became obvious that God would not raise them, the church finally buried them.
If doing to others what you would have them do to you in everything sums up the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 7:12), then loving one another as Jesus loved you sums up the New Covenant for disciples.
The reason David spent 7 days fasting for the first born child Bathsheba bore to him, hoping to change the will of God in 2 Samuel 12, was because God had spared David’s life. –“The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.” 2 Samuel 12:13 As God had done unto him, David sought to be done unto the child.
The failure to apply the New Commandment in personal love to each other through Jesus Christ, meant the Church began to experience powerlessness. When Peter displayed obedience to this command in Acts 3 by giving the cripple that which he had, the cripple walked! Power—full power flows if the first commandment of any covenant is adhered to. Break the first commandment of your covenant, and powerlessness sets in.
The Israelites filed to keep the power of Moses when they failed to keep the first commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30
Solomon lost the kingdom of Israel when he forsook the first commandment. Likewise, we lost the power even as disciples, because we forsook the first commandment of the New Covenant….and if you don’t keep the first, you won’t keep the rest.
So—just back tracking—you cannot be a disciple if you do not listen to Jesus Christ and practise His words; and you will not graduate as a disciple if you do not pay the cost either. However, graduating as a disciple does not mean you will bear the fruit of your discipleship—and the fruit of your discipleship will be tested by your obedience to the first commandment to all disciples—“Love one another as I have loved you.”
If you haven’t come to the place where you can say ‘This is how Jesus has personally loved me’—well, you cannot begin to apply yourself to this commandment. Then alright—just make every effort to enter the narrow door—that is, enter into a personal relationship with Jesus and follow Him, forsaking all else until you have a personal experience of His love and you know him as He knows you.
Now it is after you know that you have qualified for discipleship and have borne the fruit of love, the great fruit—and in this case, the fruit of having been loved by Jesus and the fruit of loving your fellow disciples as Jesus has loved you—you are ready to operate the New Covenant with its eternally superior power and benefits for God’s glory—and if it is for God’s glory—it is also for your glory. For whatever belongs to God belongs to Jesus and you are the co-heirs of Jesus. Whatever glorifies God glorifies you, and whatever glorifies you glorifies God.
So—to get this going again God had to raise up a new group of disciples. A group who will listen to Jesus and practise His words and teachings, no matter how wrong or stupid it looked or sounded—like turning wood to gold, and reading only the spoken words of God from the Bible 30 times, over and over again, to the forsaking of all other words. Having done that in you, He is now waiting to see if you will love one another in the months of your discipleship, as Jesus has loved you. Your successful obedience of this new commandment will fire up the New Covenant, and release the power of the New Covenant the way it was meant to be released as part of the preparation of the Church for the return of Jesus. We are like the man bringing out new and old treasures from the storeroom-even as you have the powers of the age to come—loosing them on earth and causing them to be loosed in heaven – so the powers of the New Covenant that should have been displayed, but were not, will also now be displayed. God is now bringing everything into play to usher in Jesus’ return.
Once you succeed in obeying the New Command, then the commands and decrees of John 20:21 can unfold for us—“Peace be with you!” The peace that surpasses all understanding comes with the love that is beyond knowledge—the love displayed by disciples for fellow disciples that Christ gave them. It is only when you love one another as Jesus loved you, can there be the peace that will allow us to be sent out – “as the Father has sent Me [Jesus], I am sending you”.
It is when there is this peace between the disciples that the Holy Spirit is properly received—“Receive the Holy Spirit” John 20:22 When all these conditions are met in a group of disciples, will the power of the New Covenant—the Covenant for the forgiveness of sins—only then will this power be truly manifested as a weapon that no enemy of God, flesh or spirit, could withstand the power that is held in the words—“If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” John 20:23
The full understanding of this command will now give us the ability to…fulfill what Jesus said in Luke 11:22 “When a strongman, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armour in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils.”
The devil was fully armed and guarding all that he had stolen through the power of sin which came through his pride, had kept his possessions safe…so safe, that he went up to God to accuse God and Job in the book of Job. So safe did the devil feel that he even personally fronted to tempt Jesus in Matthew 4 and Luke 4.
However, Jesus attacked in His weakness and forgave the sins of those who crucified Him and forgiveness destroyed the sin and its power. So great was the forgiveness, that Jesus became sin so that we might be the righteousness of God—and having forgiven the sin, He disarmed the power of sin which is death; and overpowered the devil. Thus He holds in His hands the keys of death and Hades. Jesus has taken away the armour of the Devil which is sin, death, and Hades, and now is ready to divide the spoils of sin, death and Hades with us.
If sin was the Devil’s chief weapon that caused our downfall, now the vengeance of God is such that the forgiveness of sins and the retaining of sins by our choice, is the weapon God will use to bring down all of his strongholds.
As surely as you have learned and practise righteousness, and to use it as a weapon for the glory of God—so now, those of you who are trained in righteousness will begin your training in the use of sin—its forgiveness and its retention as a weapon of vengeance of God in bringing justice to Jesus.
In this final phase of the battle leading up to the imprisonment of Satan for the thousand years, the strongholds of all who are against God and His Son will fall—not only because of the weapons of the righteousness of God, but they will also fall because of the weapons of the devil’s own making as well. God will use sin against the kingdoms of sin to effect their destruction as well as using righteousness. Not only will the enemy be cut by the sword of the Spirit—which is the word of God—but it will be his sins that will magnify the effect of the power of God. So sweet is the victory of God, the weapons of His enemies will now serve to increase His glory!
So prepare yourselves—and learn to see what sins should be forgiven and what sins should not be forgiven to magnify the word of God and His glory until Jesus is back on earth.
AMEN HOLY SPIRIT.
